


as the songbird loves the wolf

by ADyingFlower



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: A pretty dark one, But one all the same, Child Neglect, Coming of Age, Dark Shiro (Voltron), Dysfunctional Family, Emotional Manipulation, Extended Metaphors, Families of Choice, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Grooming, Gun Violence, Kidnapping, Know this is ultimately a story about families of choice, Mental Instability, Obsessive Behavior, Stalking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-10
Updated: 2018-12-10
Packaged: 2019-09-15 10:12:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 25,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16931349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ADyingFlower/pseuds/ADyingFlower
Summary: “Really?” Lance intertwines their fingers, squeezing excitedly with an actual smile dancing around his face. “You won’t?”Shiro’s eyes flutter for a brief moment, rubbing his thumb along the side of his hand. Then his expression clears, brightening up with a twin smile of his own.“I won’t,” Shiro breathes out. “We’ll keep this secret, just between the two of us, forever, okay?”Lance hurriedly nods, letting Shiro release his hands to wrap him up in a warm hug.“Oh,” Shiro whispers, in a way that makes Lance think that he’s not supposed to hear it. “You’re sosoft.”(As Lance's family falls apart under his parent's continual fighting, he finds solace in the strange friendship he builds with the school nurse and his son, but as things continue to worsen at home, the more Lance becomes entangled in Shiro's webs of secrets. But he doesn't mind - not when he knows that he'll be loved all the same.)





	as the songbird loves the wolf

**Author's Note:**

> WARNING: A lot of Shiro's behavior comes off as predatory and sometimes even sexual, but nothing of that sort happens. Shiro and Lance's relationship is 100% platonic, if a bit unhealthy. The same is said for the rest of the relationships in this fic ^^
> 
> Both Lance and Keith in this fic are around seven or eight.

Lance frowns at the doodles he carved into the dirt, scraping a couple more lines into the ground at his feet. He can hear the laughter of the other kids on the playground, the sounds of their chatter and rapid footsteps across the mulch.

Glancing up for the fortieth or eightieth time or something, his frown deepens at the sight of the hall monitor still chatting away with the first grade teacher. Everyone knows she has a crush on him, geez, but she doesn’t have to spend all recess talking to him! He misses the days where she would sit and color with him.

Now he’s all by himself. Alone.

Lance hates recess.

No one in his class honestly likes him - not after the incident with Richard Byrnes. At least in class he can sit by himself and draw, but they don’t let him sit inside for recess anymore. They don’t say it, but he can see their worried faces sometimes whenever he asks.

Fiddling with the stick in his hands, Lance sticks his tongue out just a bit as he concentrates on drawing. This one's his future dog, which he’ll name Spot, and his future cat, Fluffy -

“Hello, Leandro.” A soft voice snaps his concentration, and the stick jolts, adding one too many whiskers to Fluffy.

Lance looks up as the shadow falls over him, blinking a couple times as they crouch. Once he finally puts his finger on who it is, he gives a sideways awkward smile towards the man.

“Hi, Mr. Shirogane.” He waves a little bit towards the school nurse, before flicking his gaze to the side. Even though Mr. Shirogane is kneeling, the nurse is so tall that it’s a bit scary.

Mr. Shirogane waves back, giving Lance a reassuring grin. “Call me Shiro; all the kids do.”

Lance nods slowly, still not sure what _Shiro_ wants. He knows he has hall monitor duty sometimes during recess, and he’s seen him at the cafeteria talking with the other teachers, but beyond that, Lance and Shiro have never spoken before. Even when he gets bumps and bruises, he usually asks Ms. Altea to give him bandaids.

Not anymore, though, he thinks with a sidelong glance at the hall monitor. Mr. Sincline isn’t even that nice.

Shiro follows his gaze. “Allura, huh? Do you like her?”

Lance gasps, hastily shaking his head. “Girls have cooties!”

The nurse smiles. “Even teachers?”

“Especially teachers.” He nods his head urgently. Shiro lets out a noise that sounds suspiciously like a snort.

“I’ll keep that in mind.” Shiro pats Lance’s shoulder before standing back up to his full, terrifying height. “I’ll see you later, Leandro.”

With a wink, Shiro strides away back towards the school building, leaving Lance sitting alone against the fence once more.

•••

Shouting greets him when he steps inside the house.

Twisting his backpack’s ties, he walks sluggishly towards his room, pausing right by the kitchen doorway.

His parents Spanish screams break the silence of the house and their cutlery, sending things flying and everyone to their rooms. They’ve been like this for months.

Lance glances at them, but flinches when he catches sight of a plate flying right near the doorframe. His mami and papi don’t even seem to notice him, both of them storming off in different directions, papi even walking right by with a red face and clenched fists.

For a moment, he’s not sure where to go, but then he catches sight of something reflecting the light coming through the window. Taking careful steps through the broken ceramic, he nudges aside a plate shard to get a better look.

It’s a photo. The photo they all took last year in their yearly vacation. That time, all seven of them went to the mountains and spent a week in a log cabin, hiking around and cooking on a campfire. Veronica’s smiling face pressed against his own grinning one, and Marco and Luis are making funny faces in the corners with Rachel rolling her eyes behind them. But most of all, are his parents holding hands in the center, looking like all the world there’s no where they would rather be.

A soft hand at his elbow stops him from picking up the photo, glass and all. Glancing noiselessly over his shoulder, Veronica shakes her head sadly at him.

“Go back to your room,” She tells him in quiet Spanish. “I’ll clean this up.”

He hesitates, but she urges him with another look. That’s all his siblings do nowadays, clean up the evidence of the fights and keep him in his room, like he won’t hear the screaming that way.

But he nods anyhow, trodding back to the room he shares with Luis. Dropping his backpack at the foot of the bed, he pulls his legs close to his chest and hides his face into them.

It’s only then that he lets himself cry.

•••

After their first meeting, it’s like Shiro’s everywhere now. He keeps seeing him out of the corner of his eye: during lunch, recess, quick glances in the hallway and when Shiro substitutes for science when Mrs. Luxia threw up her lunch. Of course, they didn’t say that she did, but Plaxum in Social Studies heard it, and _everyone_ knows she can’t keep her mouth shut to save her life.

During the time Shiro substitutes, Lance can’t help but feel like he’s being favored. Everytime he answers a question correctly, he gets a gold star on his chart, even though Mia answered a really hard one perfectly and doesn’t even get anything than a ‘good job’. Shiro keeps touching him too, just a shoulder pat here or there, but one time he even gets a hair ruffle when he got up to sharpen his pencil.

But everyone else notices too.

“First you can barely speak English, and now you’re a teacher's pet?” Richard mocks, pushing him sharply. The two of them are surrounded by Richard’s friends and a couple other too curious classmates.

Despite himself, Lance just can’t help rising to the bait. “I can speak it better than you!”

Honestly, he probably could. Richard always mispronounces ‘Missouri’ in class, but no one ever wants to correct him.

He’s not sure who strikes first. Only that one of them does, and then they’re rolling around in the dirt, fists flying and hurtful words. Lance lands a good punch in Richard’s stomach, and then they’re being pulled apart by the hall monitors, their shouts a dull roar in his ears. Blearily, he notices that it’s Shiro holding him up under the arms, and then the nurse is picking him up, cradling him against his chest with an arm under his thighs and another holding his shoulders against Shiro’s broad form. Lance throws his arms around Shiro’s neck, stifling his cries in the crook of his neck.

“I’ll take him to my office, can you take Richard back to your classroom and patch him up?”

“Of course,” Ms. Altea’s voice is _frosty_ with anger, and even though he can’t see her, he still flinches anyhow. “I’m very disappointed in the two of you, I thought better of you.”

Shiro’s arms tighten around him protectively, and then Shiro is _hushing_ her. “I don’t think either of them can handle a lecture right now. Go patch Richard up, I have Leandro.”

He’s not sure what Ms. Altea’s response is, as Shiro quickly sweeps him away from the playground, making soothing sounds the entire time. His large hand is pressing into his back, smoothing up and down like his papi used to do when he had nightmares.

And it’s this moment that cracks Lance. Months of built up stress boil up and topple over as he clings to Shiro, the strange nurse who’s so nice to him, even though he has no reason to be.

Eventually, the footfalls fade from rough mulch to smooth tile, and then they’re both being plopped down on a flat surface. Lance squeaks as Shiro reclines back on the cot they keep in the nurse’s office, keeping his hold firm on Lance the entire time, letting him snuggle up on top of him.

“I think you need comfort more than hydrogen peroxide,” Shiro says, his voice amused. Lance doesn’t dare respond - too afraid that he’ll break into another fit of tears - but he does cuddle closer.

Shiro runs a hand down his back, his other one playing with the hair at the nape of his neck. Lance knows that one of Shiro’s hands is metal, but he doesn’t comment on it, Rachel snapping at him that it was rude to ask once when he saw a man at the bus station with a fake leg.

“I have a feeling this has more to do than playground bullies, bud.” Shiro keeps his voice gentle, but it barely softens the verbal blow. “Why don’t you tell me what this is really about?”

Lance sniffs, curling his hand in the fabric of Shiro’s fancy shirt. Marco made him triple promise to never tell anyone about their parents fighting, but if he keeps the details out of it…

Slowly, he nods his head, clearing his sore throat. “Mami and Papi have been fighting a lot, lately. They’re never around, Mami stopped taking us to ice cream Tuesdays and Papi didn’t come to my last soccer game and all they do is yell at each other…” Lance blinks wet eyes, not fighting it as Shiro tucks his head under his chin, humming a soft melody he doesn’t recognize.

“That’s something someone your age shouldn’t have to go through, I’m so sorry.” Shiro whispers, and Lance lets out a soft shudder. He didn’t mention the broken glass, or how Veronica had to be the one to take them all grocery shopping and Marco started making them stove dinners and Luis got a job mowing lawns to pay for food and Rachel cleaned the house on the weekends and that Lance taught himself how to do fold their laundry -

But still, even if Shiro doesn’t know the whole truth, it’s a warm feeling to have someone else besides his siblings know about his home life. He felt like he was about to burst at the seams, lately.

“I got you.” Shiro says, and somehow, Lance believes him.

•••

Shiro cleans out his cuts and places cool Spider-Man bandages over all of his battle injuries, even kissing over some of them with a fond, “Kiss to make the pain go away!”

“Officially, I have to tell your parents.” Shiro whispers to him, holding his small hands in his much bigger ones. Lance is sitting on the cot with his legs left to dangle, Shiro kneeling on the ground in front of him, holding their hands on top of Lance’s knees.

Lance flinches at the thought.

Shiro gives him a grim smile. “I thought as much, so just this once, I won’t. But you have to keep it a secret!”

“Really?” Lance intertwines their fingers, squeezing excitedly with an actual smile dancing around his face. “You won’t?”

Shiro’s eyes flutter for a brief moment, rubbing his thumb along the side of his hand. Then his expression clears, brightening up with a twin smile of his own.

“I won’t,” Shiro breathes out. “We’ll keep this secret, just between the two of us, forever, okay?”

Lance hurriedly nods, letting Shiro release his hands to wrap him up in a warm hug.

“Oh,” Shiro whispers, in a way that makes Lance think that he’s not supposed to hear it. “You’re so _soft_.”

It's a weird comment, but Lance quickly forgets it when Shiro lets go of him and urges him back to class. And then the memory of it is swept away entirely as Math class resumes, as boring as ever.

•••

“Shiro!” Lance chirps, shutting the door to the nurse’s office behind him. “Are you here today?”

“I’m here everyday.” Comes Shiro’s amused voice as he rounds the corner, hurriedly drying his hands on his pants. “I have to clean up the cot today, so can you sit in my desk chair today? We had a nosebleed from playing kickball a little too excited today.”

“Sure!” Lance nods his head, carefully balancing the school lunch he’s kinda maybe stealing from the school. They don’t get free food, but mami no longer gives him money for lunch, so Luis told him to pretend to put his money in the pot and hurriedly write his name down when the lunch lady’s back was turned. “Is it the fourth grade class? They always play really hard, one time, one of them kicked the ball into our classrooms window and the teacher screamed. She didn’t want to admit it, but she did.”

“Was that Mrs. Luxia?” Shiro asked curiously, pulling on plastic blue gloves all doctors wear and facing the blood splatters on the cot with a determined look on his face.

Lance nods his head, carefully placing the bought lunch on the table and plopping down in the soft desk chair. Letting out a soft giggle (and missing Shiro’s fond glance), he spins around a couple time before answering. “Yep! I have Mrs. Luxia for almost all of my classes except Social Studies and Gym.”

Shiro hums to let Lance know he’s still listening, wiping up the rest of the blood stains before dropping the tissues in the trash basket. “Do you like Gym?”

“Nope!”

The nurse blinks at him, tying up the trash basket and dropping it another basket, this one a bright red with a skull on it. “Why not?”

He shrugs, stabbing a fork into his macaroni and cheese and mechanically swallowing it. It doesn’t taste very good, but there’s not enough food for seconds anymore at dinner, so he has to eat at school what he can get. “Richard and his friends like to pick on me during it, but it’s okay.”

“Oh?” Shiro stops tying up the basket, his back to Lance. It’s as if he’s a frozen statue, stone and still. “Really, now?”

Titling his head, Lance hesitantly answers, even though the air feels almost stifling now. “It’s no big deal, though. They just pick me last and stuff, or like to team up to throw dodgeballs at me, but those are squishy so they don’t really hurt. Kickballs do though, I got one to my face once by accident, and my face looked like someone drew a net on it.”

Shiro’s still not answering him, and it’s a little scary, actually. Maybe he shouldn’t have started eating lunch in the nurse’s office? But Shiro seemed really happy when he asked to eat with him…

When Shiro turns around, Lance almost flinches. There’s a smile on his face, but it’s _wrong wrong wrong_ , just on the edge of bad scary, and Shiro’s eyes are almost on fire, that’s how bright they are.

“Leandro,” Shiro draws the name out, dragging his tongue across his lips. “Do you know what asthma is?”

•••

Asthma is the magic word, apparently.

The Gym teacher smiles sympathetically in his office, gripping a yellow piece of paper between two of his fingers. “I’m very sorry to hear about your asthma, Leandro, but Nurse Shirogane has graciously volunteered to keep an eye on you during Gym class, in exchange for your help around the office.”

Lance straightens up in his seat. “Really?”

The Gym teacher gives him a weird look, but nods all the same. “I have to head back to your class now, be sure to keep your inhaler on you and head over to the Nurse Shirogane now.”

He hurriedly nods, barely waiting for the Gym teacher to close the door behind him before he’s off like a shot towards Shiro.

The office is thankfully empty (besides for the nurse in question) when he slams the door open. Shiro looks up from the paperwork on his desk, reading glasses resting low on his nose below his scar, but then Lance is in his lap, desperately clinging to the doctors coat.

“Thank you thank you thank you thank you….”

Shiro flinches at his hug at first, but slowly relaxes into it, drawing his own arms around the small of Lance’s back. “Of course,” His voice is _so_ warm. “Anytime, sweetheart.”

•••

Lance comes home from what’s possibly one of his best days to one of his worst.

Marco kneels alone on the carpet, holding the sleeve of his sweater against the bleeding cut carved across his forehead. When he spots Lance’s horrified expression, he chuckles reassuringly, patting the carpet next to him in clear invitation.

“It’s not as bad as it looks,” Marco waves it away with an easy grin, but there’s something dark pulling at his eyes, something Lance knows wasn’t there before. “I just got in the way of a flying lamp, my bad.”

Lance kneels next to him, failing to contain the heartbreak inside him as Marco tries to pretend that their parents didn’t hurt him, by accident or not.

“It’s not as bad as it looks.” Marco repeats, and Lance wants to ask him if he’s saying it for Lance’s benefit, or his own.

•••

Veronica lets him stay home the next day. In fact, all of them stay home. His eldest sister takes them to the park with a carton of ice cream they bought from the dollar store, along with the forks she smuggled from the kitchen in her pocket.

“It’ll be okay.” She reassures them confidently, nodding her head like she really believed it. “Our parents won’t fight forever - they can’t.”

There’s a crinkle in the corners of her eyes, and her hands shake a little bit around the metal fork she grasps tightly in her fingers. She’s trying, even though none of them can really bare to meet her eyes.

Rachel stabs the vanilla ice cream carton in the middle, petulantly shoving a forkful in her mouth. “But it’s been months, Ronnie…”

Veronica tries to smile. “I know, but think of all the good times, you know. Remember when we all -”

“What about Marco?” Luis interrupts, staring intently at Veronica. “If you forget, they hurt him! We have to _tell_ somebody, Ronnie, we can’t just -”

“No!” Veronica blurts out, shaking her head rapidly. The fork in her hand drops, but nobody but Lance seems to notice it. “They’ll just take us away, and no one’s going to want two siblings, nevermind five! We’ll get split up with no way to keep in contact and who knows what else will happen.”

This time, Marco jumps in. “The cut isn’t that bad, and they both apologized afterwards, it’s okay Luis -”

“But they can’t just go ahead and hurt one of us without some kind of punishment!” Rachel this time.

Lance slips another forkful of vanilla into his mouth, staring at a strand of grass by his feet. Overhead, his siblings continue to argue about their living situation, what to do next, should they tell someone, they don’t have enough money to buy Luis the calculator he needs for math class and papi snapped at them when he asked, Veronica’s going to try and get a job as well and Marco should see about trying to get money from tutoring kids…

Eyes suddenly wet, he blinks them a couple time, gaze refocusing on the half eaten ice cream carton in the center of their makeshift circle. It’s a Tuesday, he remembers distantly. Memories of his mami and papi holding each of his hands, lifting him high in the sky. Of Veronica’s laughter, which he hasn’t heard in so long. Marco’s fistbumps and Luis’ ear piercing cackles, Rachel typing away on her DS behind all of them trying to hide her fond smile.

Swallowing heavily, he sticks his fork in the carton and keeps on eating the tasteless desert, his siblings arguing continuing on overhead.

•••

Spending gym ‘helping’ Shiro around the nurse’s office basically amounts to organizing his desk and taking out the trash. In the end, it leaves him with a lot of free time, most of which he uses to chat with Shiro.

“And then, I tripped over all of Rachel’s clothes, because she left them! Right in the middle of the kitchen floor! I thought I could trust her.” Lance pouts, crossing his arms across his chest. Shiro lets out a chuckle, leaning back in his desk chair with a groan as he stretches.

“I’m sure it was an accident.” Shiro waves it aside, but then a thought seems to occur to him, his gaze flicking between the cot Lance is laying across and the desk in front of him. “Hey, don’t tell anyone I told you this, but I heard Mrs. Luxia is planning to have a pop quiz on the water cycle later today.”

Lance jumps up, scrambling to his backpack. “Noooo, I’m really bad at the water cycles! And I have her after lunch!” Lunch, which was right after Gym, so he spent almost two full hours with Shiro. Not that he was complaining, Shiro was amazing! And….he might even be a _friend_.

His first, and only friend. It makes his head fuzzy and a smile crawl on his face every time he thinks about it.

“I could help you study,” Shiro offers, pushing back from the desk in the rolly chair (which is unfairly cool). “If you’d like?”

There was something…hesitant, about the way he offers it that has Lance jumping to answer him. “That’d be awesome!”

Shiro smiles at him fondly, and it makes Lance giggle with pure happiness. Patting the space between his legs, Shiro leans back for Lance to grab his science folder and plop down on the chair with him. Humming as Shiro’s arms wrap around him, his chin resting on Lance’s shoulder, Lance flips through the folder until he finds the water cycle packet he really should have studied, like, three days ago.

Papi was the one who would sit with him after school and go over his homework with him, holding him just like this as they would talk about their days in between math problems and practicing his letters. It hurts, for a moment, but then Lance snuggles back into Shiro’s hold and is quickly distracted with big words like ‘precipitation’ and ‘condensation’.

He feels the press of Shiro’s own smile into the skin of his shoulder, and wonders if Shiro is a dad.

•••

Lance knows he wanted to ask. That really, it’s all his fault.

But it still stings when Shiro says yes.

A boy his age. Someone like Lance, but better. Who would want Lance around when they could have a better version, blood-related and without being a hassle on his siblings?

“I don’t know what’s wrong,” Shiro says honestly, sitting cross legged in front of the closet Lance hid himself in. He can barely see him through the crack of the door, but he knows he’s there. “Was it something I said? Leandro -”

“Don’t call me that!”

Silence.

Lance sniffs. “I just thought…”

Thought that Shiro cared about him too. But why would he? Lance is just second-rate. Annoying. Can’t speak English without an accent. Loud. A bother. A burden.

He doesn’t realize he said that all outloud until the closet door is ripped open violently, Shiro’s tall silhouette standing in the doorway.  

“ _Don’t_ talk that way about yourself.” Shiro practically hisses out, storming into the closet and digging his fingers into Lance’s upper arm. “If I hear you say one more bad word about yourself I’ll lock you in here for the entire school day, _do you understand me_?”

Lance hurriedly nods, scrambling to his feet as Shiro begins to drag him out of closet, his grip like iron but never outright hurting. He flinches as Shiro locks the door to the office, yanking him towards the cot. Not waiting for a signal, he crawls up on to the cot, bringing his knees to his chest with a quiet whimper.

Shiro watches him for a long moment, his face terrifyingly blank. His hands twitch at his sides like he wants to grab Lance, but he crosses his arms instead.

Then, he takes a deep breath, closing his eyes briefly as the blankness melts to concern. “Baby, you can't say those things about yourself. You’re not a bother, or a burden.”

Lance doesn’t look him in the eye.

A sigh. Then Shiro is sitting next to him on the cot, pulling him gently into his lap and enveloping him in his arms. “Oh love, those things about you aren’t true. You’re such a kind little boy, so bright and happy. Always know how to make people laugh.” Shiro nuzzles his head, smiling into his hair when Lance lets out a clogged little laugh. “Don’t you know how special you are?”

This time, Lance looks into Shiro’s eyes, searching for some kind of lie. But there’s none - he honestly believes it.

A wobbly sort of smile forms on his face. Like this, with Shiro touching him like - like he’s _precious_ , he feels -

Feels loved.

•••

Before he leaves for Science class, Shiro runs the back of his fingers along his cheek, staring at him with an unreadable look. Then he leans down and brushes the softest of kisses along his cheekbone.

“Don’t tell anyone I did that, okay?” He whispers softly. Lance nods with his own secretive grin, and Shiro rewards him with another delicate kiss, like a butterfly’s touch on his skin.

•••

Mami is crying when he gets home.

Lance hesitates outside the kitchen doorway, fiddling with the end of his shirt. Marco is still at school tutoring people, and both Luis and Veronica are at work. He doesn’t know where Rachel is, but she’ll be home before dinner. She always is.

He steps into the kitchen.

“You okay?” He asks hesitantly, flinching a little bit as her shoulders hike up higher at the sound of his voice. “Want a hug?”

The cup shatters at his feet before he can even blink.

“ _No_!” His mami tears at her hair, furiously yanking her hair, ripping strands like velcro into her worn and tired hands. “No no no! I can’t take this fucking household anymore, I can’t! Just!  _Shut!_ _UP!_ ”

A hitched gasp escapes him, but Lance doesn’t let it continue. He bolts.

Lance hears his mami scramble after him, but he’s already shoving his shoes back on, fumbling with the doorknob over her “No! Please Leandro, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that! Mami’s just a little stressed right now -”

But he’s gone, leaving the door behind him wide open, a flapping bird’s mouth as he sprints down the neighborhood streets. There’s Ms. Hanson who always lends them sugar, and the grumpy old couple, and Zack who rides the skateboard and likes to make heart eyes at Veronica and -

Mami doesn't follow him. Lance doesn’t stop running.

Eventually, the splint in his side forces him to slow down, but even then, he keeps walking. The neighborhood streets blend into busier roads, but Lance has lived here all of his life. When he finally trucks his way through the restaurant’s front door, his feet dragging behind him and his head hanging low, he barely takes note as the bell rings behind him, announcing his presence for everybody to hear.

“Welcome! How many - _Lance_?”

Veronica’s voice breaks the haze surrounding his thoughts, and Lance sniffs, glancing up with itchy eyes. Veronica’s waitress uniform was honestly pretty ugly, all yellows and grays, but she wears it well. Tiredly.

His big sister takes him by the hand, gently leading him over to the booth in the corner and helping him scoot up in seat, resting his backpack next to him. Smoothing a hand over his hair, she softly takes a seat next to him. “What happened?”

“Nothin’,” Lance rubs at his nose. “Mami got mad at me. Sad a bad word. Threw her cup.”

“You hurt?” Veronica is immediately on him, pulling his chin this way and that way. He mutters a no, but she doesn’t seem convinced until she checks him head to toe several times.

Then she sighs. “Why don’t you stay here until my shift ends? I’ll…get you some pancakes or something.”

Despite her kind words, Lance flinches.

_You’re a burden_

Veronica just pats him on the head before sliding out of the seat, heading back up to the front where a couple with their child are waiting. She looks…tired. The skin under her eyes is almost purple, and her hands have a bit of a shake to them as she writes orders down.

Lance swallows. He knows she’s given up a lot since - since their parents. Her friends never come over anymore, and she doesn’t stay late after school on Thursdays anymore for her nerd club.

She’s real smart, smart and pretty and nice, and she spends all her free time working at a rundown diner with faded lighting and a gross metallic smell.

_And now she has to deal with you too, way to go._

Lance forces the thought out of his head, but it still lingers even as he does his math homework on the sticky tables, Veronica’s fake bubbly voice a calming background noise.

He wishes Shiro was here with him, sitting across the booth and explaining all of the big sounding words to him, just like his science homework all over again. Maybe Shiro would even hold his hand again, not pushing his fears aside but accepting of them, a silent _I’ll love you anyways._

It’s the thought of Shiro that pulls him back, that slows his heart down.

Tomorrow is a school day. It’s weird, but he’s looking forward to it.

•••

Veronica pulls a double shift at the last minute to fill in for someone else, so it’s Luis who comes and picks him up instead.

“You should stay out of the house.” Luis begins carefully, hesitantly. “Just until Marco gets home from tutoring at six.”

Lance wants to complain. Why can’t Rachel be home earlier to watch him? Why does he need a babysitter? School gets out at three, what is he going to do for three hours?

But Luis smiles at him, and the corners of his eyes pinch heavily. He’s tired too. They’re all tired.

So he nods instead. Fakes a smile. “Of course!”

It - stings when Luis accepts it with a nod, even looking a little relieved. “Thanks, little dude. Now, let’s go in through the side door for now, Papi’s drinking in the living room watching the game and I don’t want to be around him when he’s like that.”

•••

The next day, when the school bell rings at three, Lance waits.

He usually walks home from school with a couple other kids in his neighborhood. They don’t talk - not really, but their parents made them at the beginning of the year so they could cross Sullivan street with all of its cars no problem, and now it’s just routine. Lance waves them off as Sofia, one of Rachel’s friends, glances between him and the group several times,  but eventually she skitters off to go talk to her own friends.

There’s still plenty of kids on the playground, so he just dumps his backpack next to theirs along the fence and rushes over to the monkey bars. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees a couple of Richard’s friends talking to each other and sending him glares, but he ignores them, swinging his legs up to hang upside down.

But that gets boring pretty quick, so he runs over to the jungle gym, and then the fun climbing thing that looks like a spider web (and that he’s awesome playing the spider role whenever they play spiders and insects), but then he gets bored with _that_ so he goes over to the swings, and by the time he’s back on the monkey bars, it’s only four and he’s the last one left on the playground.

Lance sighs. This is so _boring._

“Leandro?”

He gasps, twisting his hips to get a better glance at the voice even as he still dangles upside down. Then a smile blooms on his face, warmth curling low in his stomach. “Shiro!”

Shiro raises an eyebrow at him, crossing his arms with a fond smile. “Now what are you doing, silly goose?”

Giggling, Lance swings his legs down, hanging from just his arms. “Playing!”

“Well, I certainly got that.” Shiro reaches out for him, and Lance lets himself drop down into Shiro’s waiting arms with another loud, shrieking laugh. “But you’re never at the playground after school, don’t you walk home?”

“Yeah, but…” He avoids eye contact for a long moment, but Shiro doesn’t press him. Only holds him closer against his chest, as if to protect him from his own words. “I’m not suppos’ to go home until six, Luis doesn’t want me home alone with mami or papi.”

Shiro’s face does something weird, twisting between several emotions too fast for Lance to catch, but then he’s shifting Lance in his arms, until his head is pillowed by Shiro’s heart with his knees up to his chest.

“I got you,” Shiro murmurs, and then they’re off. Lance listens to his heart, the steady _ba-bump, ba-bump, ba ba-bump_ of it.

But he’s pulled back to reality when Shiro pauses next to a shiny (like _woah_ shiny level) car, gently lowering him back down to his feet. Lance rubs at his eyes as Shiro goes through his messenger bag at his hip, making a humming sound as he pulls out a keyring.

Unlocking the car, Shiro holds open the passenger seat for him, and Lance doesn’t think anything of it as he slides into the seat, letting a small laugh escape him as Shiro buckles him in with a loud “Hands and feet!”

“Where we’re going?” He asks as Shiro plops down in the driver seat, starting up the quiet engine and bracing a hand on the back of Lance’s seat as he glances behind him for other cars.

There’s a few moments where all Shiro does is purse his lips and slowly drive them out of the parking lot and taking a left, at the crossing where Lance usually goes right. Then: “How about we get some milkshakes? I know this really good place right outside of town. It’s a bit of a drive, but we can get fries and you can play whatever music you want.”

“I can?” Lance straightens up in his seat, already reaching for the radio. He never gets to play music! Never gets to sit shotgun either - Veronica always call that one. ‘Perks of being the oldest’, she says, but Lance thinks she just doesn’t like to share.

Shiro laughs. “Yes, you can. I’ll drive you home after milkshakes, sound good?”

Lance is already nodding, switching between radio channels rapidly until he lands on a pop song he likes. Shiro actually looks impressed when Lance opens his mouth to sing along - which he should! Lance’s church had him in the children’s choir practically since he could read the notes, and unlike the rest of the choir, he could hit A4.

Take _that_.

Shiro’s hand rests over his on the center console. “Beautiful,” He whispers as Lance belts out the chorus, hitting every note effortlessly. At first, he thinks it’s one of those comments, the ones adults make but they don’t want you to know anyhow, until Shiro’s eyes meet his when they come to a stop at a red light.

The nurse brings his hand up in the air, pressing another soft kiss to the back of his hand, keeping eye contact the entire.

“You have such a beautiful singing voice.” Shiro kisses his hand once more, and Lance hides his red face into his other hand, feeling more than hearing Shiro’s chuckle.

He lets Lance’s drop back on the seat, then, as the light turned green.

But when the next song comes on, he lets himself become swept up in the music, and Shiro holds his hand every time the car stops.

•••

They eat milkshakes in the car and split a box of fries between them. Shiro gets some kind of crushed chocolate mix with Oreos, while Lance gets a half and half of vanilla and strawberry.

“I would have thought you liked sweeter things.” Shiro idly comments, a subtle dig at all the candy from Halloween Lance still carries with him to munch on when he’s bored (or too hungry).

He pouts, offering his drink out to Shiro. “It’s sweet!”

Shiro leans over the console, taking a way too big of a sip out of his milkshake. Licking his lips, he seems to consider the drink for a long moment before nodding his head. “I’m wrong, this drink is perfect for you.”

For some reason, Lance thinks he should be offended.

They sit in silence, or, well, almost silence, for a little bit. Lance still has the radio playing soft pop tunes, some of them he hums along to as he digs through the paper bag for the fries he knows are at the bottom of the bag. He knows they’re here - last time he went out to eat, papi let him eat the fries at the bottom of the bag as they drove home without telling anyone, even offering -

Then Shiro has to go and interrupt his thoughts. “Hey, would you like to meet my son?”

Lance’s head whips around to stare at Shiro, who’s suddenly not looking at him, eyes focused somewhere past the parking lot. His first response is -

No, not really. He likes having Shiro to himself, likes the friendship he has with the school’s nurse. He doesn’t want to share this warmth with anyone, but -

Shiro also looks hopeful, so, so, _so_ hopeful.

And -

If it’s for the people he (loves? cares about? considers family?), Lance will do it.

“Okay.”

•••

(“What’s his name?” Lance will ask later, as the pop channel pauses to let the commercials run through.

Shiro won’t look at him for a while, but eventually he glances over at him, eyes running up and down his face as if searching for a lie.

Then he will let out a breath, gaze flicking back to the road as if it was never there in the first place, even as he squeezes Lance’s hand over the console.

“It’s Keith.”)

•••

Luis and Papi are screaming when he gets home.

He keeps half a side ear towards their rapid-fire Spanish as he gently closes the side door behind him, toeing off his shoes and hiking up his backpack up higher on his shoulders.

Shiro dropped him off at the end of the street, saying he didn’t want Lance’s family knowing he had driven Lance around. Sure, he’s not _supposed_ to get in car with strangers, but Shiro’s also not a stranger, so duhh.

At least Shiro thought that was funny.

Before he was dropped off, Shiro made him promise to keep the dinner a secret from his family, which kinda makes sense. They don’t know Shiro, and he doesn’t _want_ them to know Shiro, so it all works out.

He trudges past the open doorway to the living room, wincing at Luis’ voice hit record highs.

“You’re tearing this freaking family apart -”

“Don’t tell me what to do -”

“Well maybe if you got off the couch -”

Shutting his bedroom door behind him, he slinks down to the floor, staring at nothing in particular as the screams go on. Eventually, he shuffles over to his bed and squeezes a pillow over his ears, but he can still hear it when mami comes home, and then Marco, and then Veronica, all of them shouting and yelling -

His door opens.

“Hey,” Rachel whispers, crawling up in bed next to him. Lance removes his pillow, watching as Rachel sprawls out across the covers, their faces inches apart. “How long have you been home?”

Lance shrugs. “An hour or so. You?”

Rachel copies his shrug. “Only about ten minutes, I was out at a friends.”

“Ah.”

They sit in silence for a couple more moments, the only noise being the too loud sounds of the screaming from the living room. He hears footsteps stomp down the hallway, and then retreat into the bedroom across the hall - Veronica then.

Rachel blinks at him, both of them staring at each other with no words, and it’s like reading a book in a language he’s never read. The two of them are the closest in age out of the rest of their siblings, but despite that, they’ve never really hanged out on their own together. He knows she prefers to hang with Marco, just like she knows he prefers Veronica or Luis.

But they’re both still siblings.

“I heard papi lost his job,” She whispers the secret to him, and he nods his head shallowly. Papi had been staying home a lot more and drinking out of those glass bottles that Luis told him not to touch. “How are we gonna stay in our house now?”

He shakes his head. “I don’t know. I don’t know.”

There’s another furious scream, and something breaking loudly, but neither of them move, not even to flinch. They just breathe in each other, the two youngest siblings, and let the battle continue on outside his bedroom doors.

•••

Now that papi lost his job, he’s definitely not allowed to be home until Marco gets home from tutoring. Rachel always goes home with her best friends, happily smiling as their parents pick her up from school and letting the stress melt away.

And Lance? He hangs out with Shiro.

It’s a routine, now. Lance plays on the playground until four, or does his homework against the fence. And then, when everyone has already left, Shiro comes for him.

They go to the movies next, and then to another diner. Shiro even takes him thrift shopping and lets him pick out anything he wants. Once, they even go grocery shopping together.

Lance remembers holding Shiro’s hand as Shiro pushes the cart with the other, tugging on his arm and begging to try some of the chocolate cookies, when an old lady laughs from the other end of the aisle.

“Don’t mind me,” She says, waving her hand in the air. “Your son is just the cutest.”

Lance wants to say that he’s not Shiro’s son, but there’s a warmth curling low in his stomach, so he just avoids eye contact and clings to Shiro’s hand tighter.

Shiro doesn’t say anything for a long moment, just swallows and squeezes Lance’s hand back. “Thank you, ma’am.” He says finally, his voice a little breathless.

The old lady says something else he can’t remember, but he does remember Shiro kneeling in front of him later, his eyes tracing over his face.

“We really don’t look alike,” Shiro whispers, rubbing his thumb under Lance’s eye, ignoring his laugh at the ticklish feeling. “I wonder why she thought you were my son?”

Lance throws his arms open. “Because Shiro is the best dad, obviously!”

That, at least, made Shiro laugh, the lines melting out of his face as they go back to grocery shopping.

A week later, Shiro introduces him to Keith.

•••

“Here it is!” Shiro chimes as they pull into the garage. From the brief glance Lance got of the house, it looks like a pretty standard two story house, with large windows and colorful shutters. It’s surrounded by similar looking houses, and it took them nearly half an hour alone just to get here. Shiro doesn’t let him get out of the car until the garage door closes behind them, and even then, he takes his hand as he leads him through a small door from inside the garage into a side hallway.

“It’s not much,” Shiro says as they walk through the clearly humongous house. “But it’s mine, you know?”

No, Lance doesn’t know. But the house is nice looking, all clean surfaces and bright light coming through the windows. There’s several video game systems on the floor by the large TV and soft feeling couches. When he’s pulled into the kitchen, Lance’s mouth waters at all the food Shiro has stacked in his open pantry. They had to go without dinner last night, as mami was crying in the kitchen again, so they had all bundled together in Marco’s room - the attic space he demanded as soon as he learned to talk pretty much - and ate the crackers Rachel keeps underneath her bed and split some of the juice pouches Lance smuggles home from school. And lunch today was ravioli, and while he still ate it, it was really, really gross.

Briefly, he notices a couple of drawings stuck to the fridge with letter shaped magnets, before Shiro is tugging on his hand to a door with several locks lining the edge of it.

While Shiro unlocks the door, Lance busies himself with looking around the kitchen. Now that he’s looking, he can see a couple of the stick figures on the drawings. The one closest to him is three figures holding hands in a field, with the sun in the corner wearing very cool sunglasses, he has to say.

Squinting his eyes, he tries to get a better look at the names above all the figures. ‘Me’, ‘Daddy’, and ‘Leandro’, all in bright red crayon.

That’s not right. Lance tilts his head. Maybe he misread it, or got the words mixed up again. He does that a lot - one time he answered _pez_ instead of fish in class because he wasn’t listening and they all laughed at him - even Ms. Plaxum giggled into her hand.

But before he can think about how utterly embarrassing that was, the last lock finally unclicks.

“Keith?” Shiro calls, opening the door slowly. “I’m home!”

Gripping his hand tighter, Shiro begins to lead him down the stairs to the basement.

Soft footsteps rush across the carpet, and when the two of them hit the bottom of the stairs, Lance is left blinking at the dark haired boy staring right at him.

Keith grins at him. “Daddy! Leandro! You’re home!”

•••

The two of them sit in silence, playing LEGO’s between them without any words. Shiro’s gone upstairs, to make dinner supposedly, but he left Lance all behind with a boy he doesn’t even know.

It’s a nice basement, at least. Lance thinks it’s a little weird for Keith to be sleeping down here when there’s all those bedrooms upstairs, but it’s certainly not damp and creepy like his basement is at his home. The carpet is super soft beneath his feet, and Keith has piles of toys. There’s even a train set!

Everything’s lit by a star lamp over on a small wooden table, and Lance squints at the sole window high up on the wall, but it’s hard to see outside with the grate over it.

“Why do you sleep in a basement?” He asks, and instead of getting annoyed, Keith just looks delighted he’s talking.

“People tried to take me away from daddy before,” Keith nods to himself, wiggling his sheep socks as he talks before taking a yellow piece out of Lance’s pile and snapping it on to his building. “I used to sleep upstairs, but it’s safer down here. I don’t mind, though. Daddy made it all nice beforehand, and I get to go upstairs when he’s home.”

Lance gasps, crawling over to where Keith is sitting and tugging him into a hug, dramatically rocking him back and forth. “That’s awful! If anyone tried to take me away, I would bite them!”

Keith laughs in his shoulder, squeezing him softly before letting him go. “I did!”

“Way to go,” He nods his head seriously, and then both of them are giggling.

This time, playing LEGOs isn’t so quiet. The two of them chat about their days, and then Keith tells him stories about Shiro, hilarious stories that has him bent over his knees laughing hysterically.

“Telling Leandro all my dirty secrets, huh?”

Both of them brighten up, scrambling to their feet. “Shiro!” “Daddy!”

Shiro laughs as both of them tackle his hips in a hug, and then Lance is shrieking happily as Shiro kneels down to scoop both of them up from under their thighs, roaring playfully as he tosses them around.

“Dinners ready,” Shiro finally says, all three of them breathless with laughter. “So go wash up, okay?”

“Okay!” Keith says brightly, hopping out of Shiro’s arms and dragging Lance towards a small door he didn’t see before.

Dinner ends up being a pizza, because as Keith says: “Daddy says he can cook, but he really can’t.” Which had Shiro defending his honor as a cook, but really, _he can’t_. Both Keith and him get as much milk as either of them want, and the entire time Lance can’t stop smiling.

He thinks the feeling is returned, as Keith happily rambles about a TV show he watched that morning, watching as Shiro smiles to himself, looking like he has everything in the world he needs right here and now.

•••

Lance slips through the side door, humming giddily to himself. Today was such a good day! No, it was fantastic, maybe his best day ever?

Smiling as he slips his sneakers off, he thinks about watching Moana with Keith and Shiro, both of them cuddling him on the couch. About Shiro’s pleased expression, about how new Keith is, yet how much he _wants_ a friendship with him.

Once again, Shiro dropped him off at the end of the street, giving him another cheek kiss and a promise to keep this afternoon a secret. Overall -

“ _Where were you?!_ ”

Lance jerks, his gaze flicking towards where Veronica is stomping towards him. Her hair is pulled in a frizzy bun on top of her head, and the whites of her eyes are red.

“At…a friend’s house.” Lance explains slowly, not quite seeing why Veronica looks like she just went to battle.

“It’s nine!” She flicks her hand over towards the digital clock, and sure enough, the blinking green letters read a silent _9:13_.

He blinks a little bit at just how much time went by. He got to Shiro’s at four thirty, and then he played with Keith, and then they had dinner, and watched Moana, and then they watched an episode of Keith’s new favorite show…

Veronica shakes him out of his thoughts, literally. “We’ve been looking everywhere for you! Jesus fucking Christ, Luis was just about to call the police for god’s sake!” She shakes him once more for good measure, before releasing him to stomp over to the home phone and hurriedly type in a number with shaking fingers.

She’s scared, he realizes distantly. Of what?

“He’s home,” Veronica greets to whoever is on the phone. “Yeah, he’s fine. Didn’t even seem to notice what time it is. ….No…..Yeah, just get home, we all have school and work tomorrow. Bye…love you too.”

Ending the call, she turns to him with another tired glare, before sighing and refusing to look at him.

(That - that hurts.)

“Just…go.” Veronica says, staring at her feet.

Lance goes.

•••

He doesn't get dinner that night, but that’s fine. He had pizza just a couple hours earlier.

Instead, he curls up in his bed, his back to the room. Sometime in the night, he hears Luis step in, hesitating at the doorway, just staring at him.

Eventually, he sighs too, like he has the _right_ to be disappointed in him. When he comes to bed, both of them lay in the stifling silence for several moments, barely even breathing whatsoever.

“You had us worried, squirt.” Luis admits into the darkness, but Lance keeps his quiet.

Another sigh, and then Luis rolls over. In the next couple of minutes, Luis’ quiet snores break the silence.

Lance pulls the blanket up to his nose, blinking the burning tears away before they have the time to escape his eyes.

Why do they have to act like his parents?

_Why can’t they just be his siblings?_

•••

He dreams of Shiro and Keith that night, the three of them hiking through the mountain’s woods. They stop to take a silly picture at one point, and Lance knows without a doubt that this photo will remain on the fridge.

•••

Rachel walks him to school the next day, instead of hanging out with her own group of friends. The two of them walk through the neighborhood streets in a slow moving and unevenly portioned conga line, steps almost eerily in sync.

“You know,” She begins slowly, gaze not looking at him. That’s all they ever do, nowadays, look everywhere but him.

Except for Shiro. Even Keith actually _looked_ at him they first time they met.

“We’re just worried,” She trails off, and there’s a bit of yearning in her eyes as she stares at her friends happily chatting across the street from them. “You’ve just been…distant lately.”

“I’m not a baby,” He snaps, voice harsher than he means it to be. “I know what’s going on, you don’t have to keep pretending I don’t.”

Rachel’s voice is soft when she says her next words. “No one thinks that, Lance.”

“Sure you don’t.”

They’re at the school now, so Lance feels free to stomp right past her, taking the left where the lower grades are. Rachel’s hand falls away from his arm, but he keeps on going, storming through the hallways to his classroom -

“Whoa there, what’s going on?”

Lance looks up, his face melting from his harsh glare to something much softer. “Shiro!”

“Hey there, buddy.” Shiro hums, leaning back against the cement walls. There’s the lanyard with his ID hanging from his neck declaring him as hall monitor for this morning, and Lance lets the last of his anger drip away.

“Nothing much,” He answers Shiro’s earlier question, rubbing the toe of his shoe along the tile floors a couple of times. “Just…family stuff.”

Shiro tilts his head, crossing his arms across his chest. “Family things -”

“Lance!” His sister screeches from down the hall, everyone’s gaze following her as she marches down the hallway. Uh oh, guess she got over her nice stint and decided to go back to being a jerk. “Don’t you walk away from me!”

He thinks he hears Shiro mutter a “Lance?” But then it’s drown out by Rachel reaching out to him -

And then Shiro is there, a wild look in his eyes as he yanks Rachel back by the wrist, sending her feet skittering a good feet or two back. She yelps, but just as soon as Shiro pushes her away, he lets her go and instead steps between them.

“Are you okay, Leandro?” Shiro asks him, his voice high and frantic.

Lance hurries to reassure him, even patting his forearm. “Yeah, I’m okay. Uh, Shiro, this is my sister, Rachel. Rachel, I’m sure you know Shiro.”

Rachel’s eyes flick between of them for a long moment, and then she raises her chin stubbornly, nodding once to Lance. “I’ll see you later, then.”

Watching Rachel stride off in the direction of her classroom, he sends Shiro a questioning look as the school nurse whips around to open the nurse’s office, gesturing quickly for him to follow him.

And as always, he does.

“She’s doesn’t hurt you, does she?” Shiro kneels in front of him, hurriedly patting him down for injuries. “Baby, talk to me, what was that about? Who is Lance?”

Lance laughs a little bit, sheepish as Shiro grabs his elbows to stare into his eyes. “No...she’s just pissed because I got home late last night, that’s all. And Lance is my nickname.” He glances up shyly through his eyelashes. “You - and Keith too - the two of you can call me that, if you like. Only my family calls me that.”

An undeniably fond look crosses Shiro’s face, the anger melting out of him until he was just a pile of goop, his forehead pressed into Lance’s chest. “Oh baby boy, I would be so happy to call you Lance, you have no idea.”

•••

He starts seeing Keith everyday from then on. Shiro drives him to his house at four as usual, and then they’ll unlock the door to let Keith wander around upstairs. Sometimes, they play with all of Keith’s toys downstairs, and other times they’ll chase each other around the house as Shiro squints at a cookbook before giving up and ordering take out.

Shiro tries to drive him home around seven now, and while Veronica pinches her lips and Luis crosses his arm in disappointment, they don’t bother him anymore about coming home late.

This time, the two of them are playing hide and seek (with Shiro!) and Lance is totally killing it. He found a bedroom upstairs that he thinks might be Shiro’s (it has his favorite sweater hanging up in the closet he’s hiding in) and he’s hunched below all the coats.

Downstairs, he hears Keith’s victory crow, and then the sound of Shiro’s laughter. Honestly, Shiro is really bad at this game. He always hide behind the couch, even though he can’t even fit there. On the other hand, Keith is really, _really_ good at hide and seek. Yesterday, he was on top of the door frame! Though Shiro scolded him really bad for that, telling him that ‘Keith we have these rules for a reason one of these days you’re gonna crack your head open -’ and all that jazz.

Lance still isn’t sure how he even got up there.

Shifting around, Lance frowns as his back bumps into something like a box. A _pointy_ box. Sighing, he sits up and tries to push the box to the wall to make more room for him to comfortably lie down (Keith’s a really good hider, but he’s really bad at finding so it’ll be a while).

Only to find the box is heavy. Like, really heavy.

He can practically hear Rachel’s superior than you voice in his head telling him that curiosity killed the cat, but he shoves it aside. They’re still fighting, neither of them willing to say sorry or hug it out because Rachel is such a _jerk_ -

Box, right. Poking at the cardboard box, he gets on his feet to pull the long chain for the light bulb up above him.

Kneeling back down, he fumbles with the cover, clumsily pulling it off. Peering over the top, he squints at all the items inside.

Photographs…?

There’s some folders bulging with paperwork, and something that looks like a badge, but he pushes those aside to get a better look at the photos.

The first one is of Shiro and another man in glasses, both of them smiling at the camera and with their arms around each other in front of a roller coaster.

‘ _First date!!_ ’ Reads the back in black sharpie.

It takes him a minute, but then he realizes that the Shiro in this picture has both of his arms, and the scar across his face isn’t there.

The next couple ones are of the man with glasses and Shiro, each of them smiling at the camera or at each other. In one of them, it looks like someone else took the picture, Shiro and the man with glasses hugging each other with tears and happy smiles.

‘ _He said yes!’_

Lance flicks through the next few pictures, most of them being the two of them all dressed up all fancy like. He pauses at the next one, of a baby being held in Shiro’s arm.

‘ _Akira Shirogane, age three months, finally ready to come home’_

There’s a couple more of the baby, and Lance stares for a good couple of moments at a particular picture of the baby laughing in Shiro’s arms.

Wait a minute! He’d recognize that mullet anywhere, that’s Keith!

Aww, this is great blackmail material. Payback for eating the last of Shiro’s cookies, the one thing the nurse can actually make.

The pictures reach a break, as baby Keith goes from barely sitting up to running around in the next pictures, like the person who took the photos was gone for a little bit. The man with the glasses disappears after a couple more photos, and no matter how hard Lance looks for him, he’s gone. Shiro has the metal arm and the scar now, as well.

Once more, they cut off for a little bit. And then they reach something he recognizes - Keith’s room, the guest of honor pushing a train along on the floor. It doesn’t have any of the nice paint or soft carpet it has now, but Keith still looks happy enough.

And then there’s a photo of him.

Lance stops, holding the picture up to the light. It’s definitely him, walking down the road with his head down. It’s a little blurry and zoomed in, like it was taken at a distance, but then there’s more pictures of him - eating by himself at the cafeteria, playing on the playground, climbing the tree in his front yard. There’s even one of his him singing at Easter Mass, and that was months before he and Shiro even started talking.

The pictures end there.

Shrugging, Lance lets the photos go back to where they were. There’s a jacket that looks like what soldiers wear in Marco’s action figures, and a necklace engraved with _Takashi Shirogane_ along with a string of numbers.

At the very bottom, there’s a black object. It’s metal, he thinks, as he shifts it from hand to hand. Heavy, too.

The closer door rips open. “Found you!” Keith yells, and then he’s yelping as Shiro tugs him out of the way frantically, his eyes huge, right on the black object he’s holding.

“Sweetheart,” Shiro whispers carefully, his gaze never leaving Lance’s hands. “Give me the gun.”

It’s a gun? Lance juggles it a little, testing the weight in his hands. Papi has one too, but it’s locked away somewhere in the garage, and it’s for hunting only.

“Give me the gun.” Shiro repeats, kneeling down slowly with his hands reaching for the gun. He rests his hand right over the end and tugs it a little bit so it’s facing the ground instead of the wall. “C’mon baby, give daddy the gun.”

Lance pouts a little bit, because he kinda wants to play with it, but he listens and lets Shiro tug the gun out of his hands. Shiro looks like he’s about to cry out of relief as he takes the gun and hurriedly shoves it to the side, sweeping Lance up in a hug that’s a little too tight.

“Oh thank god,” Shiro whispers into his hair, and then Lance feels Keith slide up next to him and press his own cheek into Lance’s neck, arms wrapped tightly around his neck. “Oh thank god, Lance that could have _killed_ you. Baby, my sweet little baby…” Shiro hiccups, and Lance squeezes him back as tight as he can, smiling at Shiro’s little ‘oof’.

“‘M sorry, I didn’t know.”

“Shh, I know. Just don’t ever do that again, okay? Daddy couldn’t take it if you went away, it’d break his mind. Okay? Don’t die, you can’t die, please…”

•••

(Later, Lance will ask him who the man with the glasses is, and Shiro’s eyes will go flat, his expression unreadable as he says no one.)

•••

Luis has a bruise on his arm.

“Where did you get that?” He asks at dinner, pointing right at the dark splotch of purple on Luis’ arm. Veronica lets out a harsh breath of air, and Luis tugs his sleeve down from where it had ridden up.

“No where,” Luis lies to him, and Lance know he’s lying, his mouth always twitches to the side when he’s lying, but he doesn’t point it out.

Because then -

Oh.

“Oh.” Everyone’s gaze is on the table as they try to step around the issue, but then they hear the sound of a car pulling into the driveway, and the kitchen is a flurry of movement as they shove the rest of their dry pasta and canned green beans down and their dishes in the dishwater before papi gets home swaying once again.

After brushing his teeth, he quietly walks down the hallway, neatly avoiding the living room where papi is drinking out of those glass bottles again. Don’t think mami is coming home tonight…again.

He stops in the hallway at the sound of someone talking. Crying.

“I can’t do this anymore,” Lance can hear Luis sob, and then the sound of someone shushing him.

“We’ll figure this out, I swear we will.” Veronica whispers, and he peers around the doorway into the girls room to see Veronica rocking the teenage boy, gently smoothing his hair back even as her own tears continue to fall. “It won’t go on forever, just a little while longer. Just a little while longer…”

Lance draws back, oddly feeling like he’s intruding on something. This time, when he walks to his room, he tries to block out his oldest siblings cries in the dark and silent house.

•••

It’s only been a couple hours, and he’s torn from his sleep violently as Luis shakes him awake, his face terrified.

“Hide!” He hisses, and Lance can distantly hear papi’s footsteps storming down the hall towards their room, his angry voice setting the house ablaze.

Luis yanks him out of bed, and he stumbles to the laundry basket, his heartbeat echoing off the walls as Luis picks him up from under his shoulders and drops him onto their dirty clothes, covering his shaking self with a coat before darting somewhere else to hide. He hears the shuffle of blankets, and he thinks Luis’ is hiding between the bed frame and the wall (he always hides there at least once during hide and seek) but he can’t _see_ anything past the heavy coat hiding him in the laundry basket.

Papi’s voice bellows out, and Lance can hear him shouting Veronica’s and Rachel’s name, no doubt both of them hiding as well. Lance slaps a hand over his mouth, tears slipping out against his will as his papi screams their names, banging against the ceiling around the attic door.

_Don’t come out Marco hide keep hiding Marco -_

Their door tears open.

“ _Where are you filthy mooching children?!”_ Lance gulps into his palm as something is knocked over, clattering against the tile floor and shattering into pieces. “ _Which one of you stole the money?!”_

Oh god oh god _please someone help please -_

“Keep the racket down!” His mami screams from down the hall, and his papi yells something back in such quick and slurred Spanish that he can’t make it out but he’s trying not to _cry_ -

And then he’s gone, screaming something at his mami and the two of them are arguing back and forth but he can finally _breathe_ -

Nobody moves from their hiding spots until they hear the door to their parents bedroom close. Even then, when Luis pulls the jacket off of him and helps lift him out of the laundry basket, Lance can still see even in the darkness of their room the tear tracks and blotchy redness around his eyes. Across the hall, Rachel crawls out from underneath her bed sniffling, and Veronica opens their closet door, rubbing her eyes something fierce.

Marco doesn’t leave the attic, but Lance wonders if he’s crying too.

“C’mon,” Luis whispers, guiding Lance into his bed instead. “We’ll share the bed tonight.”

•••

Class starts in five minutes. He really should be there, learning verb tenses and conjunction clauses, but all he can do is take heaving breaths, standing outside of Shiro’s office.

He barely got any sleep last night. While sleeping with Luis was safe, it wasn’t comfortable either. Every time there was a creek in the house, he woke up on high alert, Luis still as a statue next to him.

So his eyes hurt, the world was a little wobbly around the edges, and his hands have a shake that just won’t go away. They all left for school an hour earlier this morning, and when he walked in he saw that Shiro’s car was missing.

But he should be here by now, right?

Right?

Knocking quietly on the door, Lance stares at his feet as he hears someone inside get to his feet, and then Shiro calling his name in confusion.

“Baby? Lance, are you okay?” Shiro says, voice quiet enough not to irritate the headache he has bouncing around in his head.

Sniffing, he glances up at Shiro with wet eyes. “Can I come home with you? Right now?”

Almost as if it’s magic, the words softens Shiro’s features until he’s kneeling right down next to him. “Of course. I still have to work, but you can hang with Keith, does that sound nice?”

He nods slowly, letting Shiro pluck him up in his arms, cradling him against his chest with gentle little coos and compliments.

Shiro has to fill out something on his desk, and at one point he dials a number on the desk until it went to voicemail.

“I’m making it look like you went home sick,” Shiro explains at his questioning stare, and then he’s back to being scooped up and carried out of the school through the back door towards Shiro’s car.

The ride to Shiro’s house is short, and unlocking Keith’s door even shorter. Shiro presses a kiss to the top of his head, closing his eyes briefly before patting his back towards the direction of the stairs.

“I’ll be back at four, why don’t you take a nap or something?” Shiro offers, and Lance tries to smile back at him, waving softly as Shiro closes the basements door behind him, the only sound being the quiet noise of a lock sliding shut.

“Lance?” He hears the familiar sound of the shuffling of socked feet on the carpet, and then Keith is peering up at him from the bottom of the stairs, hair mused and still in his Pjs. “What are you doing here?”

Slowly, he takes the steps one at a time, one hand loosely holding the railing and the other rubbing at his face. He’s so tired…

“Can I take a nap?” He asks quietly once he reaches the bottom of the stairs, feeling the hot press of tears against the back of his eyes.

Keith tilts his head to the side, his expression openly confused, but he just shrugs and points towards the full bed with red blankets pushed against the far corner. “If you want to. Want me to turn the TV down?”

Lance bobs his head weakly, already stumbling off to the bed, which looks like a haven to him right now. As he’s crawling in bed, he hears Keith turn off the TV entirely, and then a soft set of footsteps following after him.

With the blankets tucked around him and his head on one of the many soft pillows, he watches as Keith climbs up next to him in bed, a book in hand as he sits against the headboard, his free hand awkwardly patting Lance’s head.

“I’ll keep watch,” Keith explains at his confused look, huffing slightly. “No one’s gonna get you while I’m here.”

Lance blinks wet eyelashes, so so thankful for Shiro and Keith in this one moment. They’ve done so much for him, treated him like a…family.

“Thank you,” He murmurs, nuzzling into Keith’s leg and smiling almost sadly as Keith runs his fingers through the unbrushed mess of his hair.

When he falls asleep, it’s the most restful he’s gotten in a long, long time.

•••

The next time he wakes up, Keith is still curled up next to him, thumbing through his book almost boredly. His gaze flicks down to Lance, and a small but genuine smile breaks across his face once he sees that Lance is awake.

“It’s only…” Keith squints his eyes at something he can’t see above his head. “Around lunch time, you can sleep some more before Daddy comes back if you want.”

Lance shakes his head, carefully sitting up until he’s leaning on the headboard next to Keith. “‘M good.”

“Want some lunch then?” Keith almost says it like he’s asking, but then he’s tugging on Lance’s arm until he’s forced to follow after him towards the small kitchen by the bathroom door, though honestly, calling it a kitchen is a little too big of a statement. It’s a small fridge, a counter with a microwave shoved in the corner, and a shelf with a couple of dishes on it.

He watches as Keith kneels down to the fridge, pulling out two plastic wrapped sandwiches. There’s a furrow in Keith’s forehead as he neatly divides up some baby carrots between the two plates, and then he drops two lemonade caprisuns (his favorite!) on the floor before hurriedly hopping over everything to scurry to the bed with a, “Wait right there!”

Lance squints at him, then at the plates he left on the ground. He didn’t even close the fridge door!

“I’m backkkkkkk,” Keith calls, skidding next to Lance with a fancy camera held in his hands. “Sit by the food, I need to get a picture of you!”

Honestly, it speaks something at this point that Lance just sits, crossing his legs criss cross applesauce and giving the camera a lopsided grin. The flash blinds him for a brief moment, and then Keith is tapping some buttons on the camera and peering at the screen, his tongue poking out in the corner of his mouth.

“And save….” Keith mutters to himself, and then the camera makes some kind of clicking noise. It must be a good noise, because Keith grins to himself before flouncing off to the put the camera back on the bedside table.

“What was that for?” Lance asks, sliding one of the plates over to him and stealing a baby carrot.

Keith shrugs, plopping down next to him on the floor and unwrapping his own sandwich. “I dunno. Daddy makes me takes pictures of my lunch everyday. I get in bigggg trouble if I don’t. One time, there was spinach in the soup, and I really hate spinach, so I lied and said I ate it, but daddy found out anyhow so he made me eat it.”

Lance doesn’t really know what to say to that, the fogginess of the nap still clinging to him, so he just nods. “Yeah, I hate spinach too.”

Keith nods enthusiastically. “Right?”

The lunch is finished rather quickly, and after Keith shows him how to wash the dishes and where to put them to dry, the other boy drags him off to his toys in the corner of the room.

“Let's play something!” Keith throws his arms up in the air, and with a full belly and no longer feeling like he’s going to cry every couple of seconds, he copies Keith, even adding an extra little ‘Whoop’.

“Like what?” Lance starts pulling out what looks like a puzzle kit, but then Keith motions towards a box towards the back.

“Dress up!” Keith giggles.

Lance suddenly has a bad feeling.

About an hour later, he sits on top of bed, wearing fairy wings and a bright purple tutu. Why does Keith even own these things?

(He doesn’t want to admit he’s having fun. Just a little fun. Like maybe a pinkie finger amount of fun.)

“Oh save me from the dragon, fair knight!” Lance cries dramatically, flopping down on his back, the back of his hand held daintily to his forehead as he ‘swoons’.

“Don’t worry, Princess!” Keith swings out his foam sword, adjusting his Viking hat literally seconds before it falls off. “I’ll save you!”

Keith makes some ‘psh’ sounds as he whacks his sword at the air, and Lance is content to watch him battle his enemies for only a couple seconds before he’s hopping to his feet, brandishing his own foam dagger he hid under the blankets.

“Look at my character development!” He motions at himself, before giving a battle cry as he jumps off the bed.

“Princess Lanceeeeee,” Keith whines, slumping a little bit at the realization that the princess was no longer locked in the tower and instead had busted herself out rather awesomely. “I was supposed to save you!”

Lance narrows his eyes, before holding out his dagger at Keith. “In a sudden plot twist, the princess decided to duel the fair knight, because the princess doesn’t want to go back home to her tower.”

Keith straightens up. _Ding ding ding._ “The fair knight accepts her duel, because he wants to marry the princess!” Lance shrieks as Keith makes to tackle him, running out of the way with high pitched giggles.

“Noooo,” Lance laughs, skipping out of the way as Keith drops his sword, too late to avoid him grabbing his ankle and wrapping himself around it. “I don’t wanna marry someone with greasy hair!”

“We’re gonna raise goats together!” Keith declares fiercely, smothering his laughter into Lance’s leg as Lance drags his sorry weight behind him.

“Anything but the goats -” Lance has to break off he’s laughing too hard, collapsing into a puddle on the ground. Keith climbs up his leg to dig his pointy chin into Lance’s chest. Lance shoves at his face. Keith tries to bite him. Lance actually shoves Keith off of him and tries to crawl away, but then Keith is tackling him into the carpet with a loud laugh.

“We’re gonna have a million goats!”

“No!”

•••

By the time Shiro gets home, they’re watching some dreamworks movie on Netflix, eyelids sliding shut as they lean into each other, both of them utterly exhausted.

Keith perks up slightly at something, but after a few more moments, Lance’s own eyes widen as he hears the sound of the lock unclicking.

They look at each for a moment, before scrambling to their feet. “Daddy!” “Shiro!”

“Wait until I get down the stairs first, boys.” Shiro chuckles, waving at them softly before finally, finally hitting the bottom.

“Daddy, me and Lance ate the sandwiches -”

“And I took a nap -”

“Then we played princess and knights -”

“But the knight just ended up being a stinky farm boy -”

“Hey! I gave you like four goats! -”

“I’m guessing you had a good time?” Shiro raises an eyebrow at them, shaking his head with a grin as both of them nod their heads quickly. “That’s great, I’m so proud of you.”

Both of them glow from the praise, high-fiving each other quickly before Shiro opens his arms for another hug.

“Now come on, I picked up some easy cook meals from the store, all I have to do is pop them in the microwave. How hard can it be?”

Keith snorts. “Daddy, why don’t _I_ put them in the microwave?”

Shiro even looks offended. “Keith Shirogane! I _can_ cook, you know?”

Lance nods his head seriously. “Keep telling yourself that.”

“God help me, there’s two of them now,” Shiro mutters, rolling his eyes up to stare at the ceiling as if asking it for help. Then, clearing his throat, he ruffles each of their hairs. “Now come on boys, we have to get Lance home at a decent time today.”

Keith pouts, a loud whine coming out through his closed teeth. “Does Lance _have_ to go back? Can’t he come live with us already?”

Shiro sends Keith a sharp glare that has Keith shutting his mouth with a quiet ‘click’ of his teeth. “Keith,” He growls warningly, and Keith pales, his shoulder hunching up to his ears at Shiro’s unbending stare.

Lance glances in between them frantically, and then he’s nervously laughing. “That would be fun...living here.”

That seems to snap Shiro and Keith’s silent conversation. Shiro turns to face Lance, his expression once again relaxed and open.

“Really?” Shiro asks, something hopeful in his voice. Lance nods his head, and Shiro gives him his own little helpless smile, as if finding something Lance did as cute.

Keith takes a little while longer to relax next to him, but then he feels the creep of small fingers next to his own, and Lance drops the edges of his shirt to interlock their fingers behind his back.

Shiro watches them for a moment, the smile melting off his face. He doesn’t look scary anymore, just - blank.

Then he sighs. When he opens his eyes, to both of their horrors, they’re a little damp.

“I’m sorry Keith,” Shiro kneels down, his eyes only on Keith. “I’m so sorry baby, daddy didn't mean to snap at you.”

Keith doesn’t look up from the ground. The hand Lance has is shaking.

Shiro reaches out slowly, resting his palm along Keith’s cheek. Then his other hand is coming up to frame Keith’s face, forcing him to look at Shiro.

“Daddy’s sorry,” Shiro gives Keith a wobbly smile, his own hands shaking. He looked…scared. _Terrified_. “I promised you I would never hurt you, remember? Daddy means it, _god_ he means it. Why don’t I take you out to the zoo, just you and me, this weekend? …Akira?”

Keith sniffs, knocking aside one of Shiro’s hands to rub at his eyes and dropping the one holding onto Lance. “You...you mean it?”

Shiro nods his head quickly, hope blooming on his face. “Of course! Anything you want, sweetheart.”

Keith hesitates, and then he nuzzles into Shiro’s palm, accepting the apology. The relief is practically smothering as Shiro crumples, gathering up Keith’s tiny hands in his and pressing kisses all along his knuckles, whispering a quiet, “Thank you thank you thank you…”

“Can we go to the zoo with the hippos? And...can Lance come along too?” Shiro is already nodding before Keith can finish his sentence, and Lance can only watch as the two of the make up.

It’s weird. Lance should feel jealous, that Keith is monopolizing Shiro’s time and attention like he is. But he can only smile as the two of them hug each other, though it was more of a desperate cling than a hug.

Padding over, he pats both of them on the head. “Good boys.”

Shiro peers at him with red eyes, still crushing Keith to his chest, though Keith didn’t look like he really minded. “Are...are you imitating me?”

Lance just pats his head again.

•••

“The school called.”

Lance freezes with the forkful of reheated spaghetti halfway to his mouth. It was past his bedtime, but he was hungry and he knew how to run the microwave.

He thought he was the only one up. Guess not.

Rachel leans against the doorframe, Veronica’s old nightgown hanging off her shoulders. She crosses her arms, and she looks just like a spitting image of mami that he almost chokes on the leftovers.

“You went home ‘sick’?” She raises an eyebrow at him, and he slowly swallows the mouthful. “And who picked you up?”

Lance doesn’t say anything. Slowly, he reaches for another bite, keeping eye contact with her as he continues to eat the spaghetti.

Rachel’s expression darkens. “Was it that school nurse? I don’t like the way he looks at you.”

This time, he scowls. “You don’t know anything about Shiro!”

“That!” She points at him, smug. “No one should call a teacher by a nickname! Lance, c’mon, see some sense here. He’s way too nice to you, he obviously wants something from you.”

Lance stabs his spaghetti, appetite gone. “Can’t he just be nice?” He asks, voice quiet.

Rachel watches him for another long moment. “No,” She finally says, shaking her head. “Lance… he looks at you like he wants to _eat_ you.”

Lance shakes his head, but she’s already continuing on. “You’re welcome for deleting the voice mail, by the way. I don’t trust him, and neither should you.”

Turning around, she strides off back to her bedroom, leaving Lance alone in the dark and silent kitchen.

What…? What does that mean?

•••

Lance watches Shiro from his spot on the bench, his head in his hand. The nurse was talking with Ms. Altea animatedly, his hands waving in the air. Ms. Altea laughs at something he says, and while she wipes at her eyes, Shiro sends him a small secretive smile and a little wave.

Lance waves back. Shiro’s expression brightens, but then Ms. Altea pulls him back into another conversation.

Does Shiro really look at him that way? Why would he want to eat him anyhow? Lance is all sticks and bones.

“Leandro,” Mrs. Balmera, the art teacher, leans over the back of his seat to gently smile at him. “How are we doing today?”

Lance likes Mrs. Balmera. She sneaks them snacks during class and plays gentle music if they’re extra good.

“Cold,” He mutters, because it’s true enough. He _is_ cold. The weather has been getting closer and closer to winter as much as the south could. He’s still too small to fit in Marco’s old coat, so he’s just wearing a zip up jacket with his knees bundled to his chest.

“We can find you a jacket in lost and found,” Mrs. Balmera offers with a gentle smile. “Or if you want -”

“That’s quite alright, Shay.”

Lance lets out a little ‘yeep’ sound at the _growl_. Shiro, in the time he glanced away from him and Ms. Altea to Mrs. Balmera, had traveled across the entire playground and was now digging his nails into the nape of Lance’s neck.

“I’ll take him to my office, I’m sure I have a coat hanging around somewhere.” Lance peers up at him through his bangs, and he can’t help but flinch at the _furious_ shine in his eyes.

_Please don’t hit me please don’t hit me -_

Mrs. Balmera looks hesitant, but she nods all the same. Shiro wastes no time in urging him to stand up, and practically dragging him off the playground back to the school building by his hand.

By the time they make it back to the nurse’s office, Shiro seems to have calmed down a little bit. Instead of pulling him around, Shiro simply hefts him up from under the knees and plops him down on the cot. Lance wiggles over to make room for Shiro, and the nurse takes the seat after a few moments, staring down at his knees with an unreadable expression.

“Am I scary, Lance?” Shiro asks, and his voice _wobbles_. Lance is already scrambling up before he even thinks about it, throwing his arms around Shiro’s shoulders.

“No way!” He shakes his head so hard the room spins. “Shiro is the best - you’re the nicest person ever, and you give good hugs, and you always make me feel warm inside, and, and -”

“Shh,” Shiro whispers, voice rough. His arms come up slowly around Lance’s back, as if he was afraid to touch him. “Thank you, baby boy.”

The two of them lean back until Lance is sprawled over Shiro’s chest, and he’s abruptly reminded of that school yard fight from so long ago, Shiro holding him just like this.

He mentions it to him, and Shiro barks out a dry laugh. “I remember that, I was afraid you would break your own hand trying to punch him.”

“But I didn’t,” Lance coos, and Shiro kisses his forehead softly.

“But you didn’t.” Shiro confirms, and the two of them sit in silence for several long moments.

Yet Lance doesn’t mind - it’s comfy here, and even if, _if_ Rachel is right, Lance doesn’t mind. Not with Shiro, who’s given him everything - a place to return to, a new friend, …a family.

He’s almost like -

“A long long time ago,” Shiro’s rough voice breaks his train of thoughts, and Lance closes his eyes into the touch of Shiro’s hand. “There was a boy who thought he knew what love was, and he married someone who had the sharpest mind.”

“And then,” He whispers into Lance’s hair. “The boy and the sharp man adopted a little baby. The baby had the softest skin and the cutest laugh the boy had ever heard, and that’s when he actually knew what love was.”

Lance frowns to himself, trying to push himself to sit up and look at Shiro’s face, but the arms around him won’t budge. “But the boy was ripped away from his baby, because you see, the boy had a dream. So the boy thought to himself ‘I’ll be back in no time’.”

Shiro takes a shuddering breath. “I was gone a year before they could rescue me. I missed his first words, his first steps. But god, I was _so_ happy to be back with Akira, my little baby boy.” A gulp, and then Shiro is letting out a soft whine into Lance’s hair.

“But then, but then,” Shiro gasps out, and Lance’s eyes widen when he feels liquid drip onto his forehead. “They told me, told me I was too _violent_. That I couldn’t be around my baby, the _one_ good thing I had - that I would _hurt_ him - I love him! I love him so much it _hurts_ , and _fucking_ Adam -” Lance flinches at the swear, and that, more than anything else, calms Shiro down.

“So I took him.” Shiro’s voice is flat. Blank. “I took Akira, changed his name to Keith and ran as far as my car would take me. I’m so scared that someone will take Keith away from me again that I have him live in the basement. I’m the worst kind of dad there is - it’s just like they said, I’m violent, my mind _cracked_ -”

“No!” Lance blurts out, finally throwing his weight out of Shiro’s arms and squishing Shiro’s cheeks together. “You’re a great Daddy! Keith loves you! _I_ love you!”

Lance flushes as he realizes what he said, squeaking as he covers his face with his hands. Silence reigns for a long moment, but then he feels a gentle touch on his wrists, softly tugging his hands away from his face.

Shiro stares up at him with wet eyes and the largest beaming grin Lance has ever seen on his face. His hands slide up Lance’s wrists, tangling their fingers together and bringing them to his lips.

“And so the boy moved away with his baby, moving from place to place until he found a little a little house in a little town. He got a job working as a school nurse, and then one day,” Shiro’s eyes flick up to meet his. “He heard a little bird singing the most beautiful song he’s ever heard.”

Lance’s mouth parts. “Me?” He squeaks.

“Yep,” A little grin tugs up the edges of Shiro’s mouth. “I fell in love with you voice, and then I got the chance to actually meet you, and baby boy,” Shiro kisses his fingertips. “I love you, so, so much.”

•••

Mami and papi were both out somewhere, so Lance isn’t scared as he steps up to the doorframe to the living room, watching his sister lazily flick through the TV channels. She’s barely been home for the last week, murmuring things like work schedules and homework whenever he does see her, so Lance avoids her, avoids all of his family, really.

Her hair is bundled up on top of her head in a messy bun, and her glasses have a piece of tape tied around one of the hinges. When did she break them?

“I know you’re there, Lance.” He flinches a little bit, but scurries up to her side anyhow, fiddling with the bottom of his shirt. Veronica sighs at him, rubbing at her face. “What do you want? I’m tired.”

He knows she doesn’t mean it like that, not really, but he still barely stops himself from showing his hurt on his face. “Can I stay over a friend’s house on Saturday?”

They both kinda just look at each other, knowing that it’s a question you ask your parents, not your older sister, but Veronica rolls with it easily enough.

“What time and who’s the friend?” She asks, her head rolling back onto the couch cushion.

Lance toes at the floor. “Keith, and his dad is gonna pick me up at ten, and he’ll drop me off in the afternoon on Sunday.”

Veronica squints at him, but she’s tired, tired in a way that sleep won’t help, so she just shrugs her shoulders. “Sounds good. Just be sure to get to bed at a decent hour on Saturday, and thank his dad for me?”

He straightens up, his face already breaking into a bright grin. “Of course!”

As he goes to skip off, Veronica stops him with a quiet, “Lance.”

Tilting his head, his feet shuffle back, watching Veronica expectantly.

“Just,” She huffs out. “I love you.”

Lance raises an eyebrow, but he says it back all the same. “I love you too, dummy.”

As if that was even a question.

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Marco watching them from the hallway, but when Lance turns around to greet him, he’s gone, his footsteps rapidly fading down the hallway.

•••

Lance bounces on his feet, hurriedly stuffing the rest of his clothes in his backpack. His first sleepover!

“Where is Keith’s dad taking you, anyhow?” Luis asks, kicking his legs from his spot on his own bed.

Despite himself, Lance tenses at the idea of mentioning Shiro. He’s said everything Shiro told him to repeat to Veronica, but it was hard to keep track of all of the orders. _Don’t say Shiro’s name. Don’t give too many details. Don’t use the name Akira. Don’t reveal their address._

“The zoo,” Lance says shortly, brushing Luis off as he goes to grab his toothbrush. When he comes back, his brother is propped on his back with a book held high above his head.

Lance sighs in relief. Look at Lance, the deflection master!

“I’ll be off, then.” He waves at the bedroom door, and Luis lowers the book just enough to make eye contact with Lance.

“Want me to walk you to the car?”

Lance shakes his head, trying not to look too eager. “Nah, you’ll embarrass me!”

Luis smirks at him over the top of the novel. “Isn’t that what older brothers are for?”

“ _Good_ bye Luis.” His older brother’s laugh follows him out the door, and it’s only when he’s standing on the front steps of his house that he relaxes, patting his backpack to double check that everything was there one more time.

Then he leaves the house, making his way down the street. When he’s at the end of the street, and far out of sight of his house, he brightens at the sight of Shiro’s car parked under the shadow of a tree.

“Shiro, Keith!” Lance cries happily as he dives into the backseat, swiftly closing the door behind him. Shiro just laughs from the driver’s seat, but Keith happily accepts his hug, squeezing him tightly once before pushing him into his seat.

“Come on, I haven’t been outside in forever!” Keith crows happily, and Lance can’t help but notice the wince that crosses Shiro’s face. “I wanna see the hippos!”

Lance drops his backpack in the footwell of the car before hurriedly buckling up. “I’m ready, I’m ready!”

“Good,” Keith nods to himself as they slowly start to pull off the curb. “Because I have a bunch on games on here we need to play together.”

‘Here’ being Shiro’s phone.

“Just don’t kill the battery, please.” Shiro pleads with them.  

Even Lance can tell that the grin Keith shot Shiro wasn’t completely sincere.

Setting down the phone on the seat between them, the both of them knock their heads together as they lean over the phone. Lance’s eyes widen as Keith types in the password, the phone unlocking to a home screen of both of their smiling faces.

He didn’t even know this photo was taken… The two of them are wedged against each other on the couch, their weights pressed against each other as they utterly kick each other’s butt at Mario Kart, hands waving in the air and big smiles on their faces.

The thoughts don’t last long long, just until Keith nimbly opens the fruit ninja app. And then the rest of the ride has him focusing on the app, and how he’s totally gonna trounce Keith’s butt!

(He only wins two games out of the seven, but he doesn’t mind too much. A smidgen. Okay, maybe a lot. He’ll get Keith back for this later)

Lance peeks up a couple times, frowning at the view of the highway whipping past them. He’s sure there’s a zoo close by without using the highway…

“There’s no hippos at the local zoo,” Shiro says from the front, jolting Lance out of his thoughts. Did…Shiro develop the ability to read minds?

“It’s all over your face,” Shiro explains at his expression, and Lance’s confusion falls. “Hey Keith, could you water my crops for me?”

Keith sighs, his shoulders slumping dramatically. “If I _must_.”

“You don’t have to do it, really.” Shiro’s says, obviously amused.

But Keith just ignores him, opening some farming game with a long drawn out whine. “Daddy, really, do I have to do everything?”

Lance leans over Keith’s shoulder, squinting at the screen. “Are those chickens?”

“Yep,” He nods. “Chickens and goats and cows and _lambs_. Daddy, I wanna be a farmer when I grow up!”

“I never would have guessed. Truly.”

“ _Daddy!_ ”

“Sorry, sorry.”

The clock on the car’s dashboard reads that an hour had passed before Shiro finally, _finally,_ pulls into the zoo’s parking lot.

“Whoa whoa whoa,” Shiro interrupts them as they practically scramble out of their seats to get out of the car and run towards the entrance both of them can see in the distance. “Sunscreen! Sunscreen!”

Shiro makes them stand by the car with one of those spray on sunscreens, holding their arms out and making Lance kinda feeling like an idiot as the nurse concentrated on practically covering every inch of them.

Then he sprays some in his hands, ignoring their whines as he smears it all over their faces and necks, being careful of their eyes and mouth.

“Do you want to be lobsters?” Shiro mocks scolds Keith as the other boy tries to wiggle out of his hands. “Lance might not, but I know you burn, buddy. You have the freckles to prove it.”

Keith squeaks. “I don’t have freckles!”

Lance peers at his shoulders, where constellations of freckles broke the canvas of pale skin. “Yeah, you do.”

The other boy whirls around to point a finger at him. “Quiet!”

“Keith!” Shiro frowns, and Keith wilts a little bit.

“Sorry,” He mutters, but Lance just hugs the apology away.

“It’s cool, I wasn’t even mad!” Lance sing-songs, squeezing Keith one more time (and being secretly squeezed back, Keith likes to say he doesn’t but he really does like cuddles).

“Good job,” Shiro praises them, waiting for them to detach before enacting the rest of his evil, evil plan to Keith. Hah. “Time for the hat and sunglasses, sweetheart.”

Keith doesn’t move away when Shiro fits the red sun hat over his head, but he does whine when he’s handed a pair of sunglasses with bunny ears at the top. “Do I _have_ to?”

Shiro glances at the glasses. “Why not? I think they’re cute.” He says, honestly confused.

They _are_ pretty cute.

Keith groans, but he slides the sunglasses on anyhow. Shiro fiddles with the hat and glasses for a little while longer, adjusting them, before going back to how they were, before adjusting them again.

“Can we go now?” Lance eventually asks, patience thoroughly done. Shiro jumps, as if he forgot Lance was there, before finally letting Keith wear his accessories in peace.

(Lance knows he wasn’t imagining the grumble Keith made.)

“I got you one too, if you want to wear it?” Shiro offers, sorting through the bag he’s carrying before pulling out a blue sun hat and matching sunglasses.

Lance points at the hat. “Sunglasses make everything look funky.”

Shiro sighs, but he has a smile on his face, so Lance won’t count it against him. He waits as Shiro pulls on the hat until it’s snug on his head, and then clips the sunglasses to the front of his shirt, for ‘later’.

“Now can we go?” Keith bounces on his heels, pulling on Shiro’s sleeve. “Can we go can we go can we go -”

“We can go!” Shiro holds up his hands in defeat as both of them herd him towards the entrance. “Remember to hold my hands at all time in the parking lot! And sunscreen wears off in three hours, and _so help me Keith if you run off one more time_.”

Keith reluctantly trudges back. “Sorry.”

Shiro leads them by hand towards the zoo, and Lance is practically hopping in place, excitement burning a hole in his throat. He’s going to the zoo! The zoo!

“You have such cute kids,” The attendant at the ticket stand comments, smiling kindly at the both of them. Keith actually hides behind Shiro, pulling the hat lower over his head, and Lance shyly waves, wishing desperately he had put the sunglasses on.

But Shiro just takes it in stride, smiling kindly at her and sliding the money under the plastic bar. “Thank you! They’re very shy.”

The two of them trade boring conversation, and Lance slowly slinks behind Shiro next to Keith, making faces at him.

_Why are adults so boring?_

_I don’t know, but it stinks_

_You hungry?_

_A little. You?_

_A little_

“Thank you,” Shiro says warmly to the lady at last, finally taking the tickets and making to leave. Lance latches on to one hand, and Keith swiftly takes the other, both of them tugging Shiro’s attention away from the booth and back towards them.

“C’mon!” Lance cries, and Shiro laughs, letting him and Keith drag him away. They have to stop one more time for Shiro to have the tickets ripped, but then they’re through the doors, and Lance is jumping with little victory whoops.

At the zoo! At! The! Zoo!

“Sorry, Sorry.” Shiro says, still laughing. “I know, she was annoying, right? But we’re here, where do you want to go to first?”

Keith points towards the left. “Hippos!”

“Can we see sharks too? Do they have sharks?”

“Yes to the hippos,” Shiro agrees, holding each of their hands as they walk over to the Africa exhibit. “And I don’t know, maybe we can check the ocean section later?”

Lance shrugs. Sounds good to him.

The hippos end up being _super_ cool. There’s not many people, so Keith and Lance can press their faces against the glass and watch the hippo swim in circles under the water, occasionally coming so close to the glass they could _touch_ it.

Keith looks starstruck, eyes humongous and fixed on the hippo lazily swimming around, occasionally coming close to the bottom to push herself forward.

“Daddy,” Keith finally says, peering back to give Shiro a pleading look. “Can I have a hippo for Christmas?”

“Uh, _no_.”

Shiro manages to pry them away from the hippos to go see the rest of the Africa animals. There’s no sharks in the ocean section, but he does get to pet a stingray (though Shiro made him and Keith wash their hands several times with soap before he would let them go see the rest of the animals).

By the time lunch rolled around, Lance pretty much inhales his food, both starving and ready to go see more animals. There’s a penguin exhibit - penguins!

Keith copies him, both of them viciously chewing their fries to pieces, and Shiro has the nerve to laugh at them!

“Slow down,” He lazily takes a bite of his burger, watching them with open amusement. “The foods not going anywhere, and neither am I.”

Begrudgingly, Lance stops trying to swallow his food unchewed, but he does stick his tongue out at Shiro. With all his food still on it.

He finds it way too satisfying watching Shiro’s scrunched up face.

The rest of the afternoon is filled with them hitting the rest of the animals (though Shiro asks that they skip the bug exhibit, and Keith takes pity on his disgusted face and pats his hand sympathetically).

Now, Lance yawns into Shiro’s shoulder, blinking slowly at Shiro’s humming. Keith lets out a quiet breath into Shiro’s other side, nuzzling the shirt sleepily before relaxing.

“You had fun?” Shiro quietly asks, carrying them both easy as pie through the parking lot, the setting sun behind them.

Lance nods his head with a soft whine, sticking his own face in the crook of Shiro’s neck. Shiro’s laugh, low and warm, reverberates to his bones.

“Sleepy boys.” Shiro whispers.

He’s not sleepy…

The next thing he knows, he’s being set carefully in the backseat, Keith slumped next to him.

“Night night,” Shiro kisses his forehead gently after buckling him in. He makes to lean back, but Lance, through blurry eyes, grabs onto the edge of his shirt.

“Love you,” He murmurs, his eyes sliding shut once more.

He feels his hand gently pulled out of Shiro’s shirt, and then Shiro is smoothing back his bangs and kissing him once again.

“I love you too,” Shiro says, and Lance thinks that he’s smiling.

•••

Both of them are shuffled downstairs, Lance’s bag dragging behind him. Shiro fusses over making Lance’s bed ready on the floor as the two of them brush their teeth with bleary eyes, shoulder to shoulder.

Keith spits in the sink, glancing at him with sleep mussed hair. “Are you gonna tell daddy that we’re sleeping in the same bed or will I?”

Glad that they’re on the same page about cuddling, Lance takes a look out of the open door to still see Shiro fiddling with the blankets.

“Nah,” He finally says, washing his own toothbrush. Keith shrugs and leaves the bathroom to go steal the pjs Shiro left on the foot of the bed for them.

Lance, who was already in his pjs, took a little while longer to brush his teeth. When he finishes, he blinks at the sight of Shiro sitting against the headboard, a sleepy Keith wearing a big T-shirt with cats printed on it leaning into his side.

“Twins!” He whisper-shouts, pulling at his own shirt, which had three cute dogs and glitter surrounding them. It might had been Rachel’s originally, but it was his now, so too bad, so sad.

“Twins,” Keith weakly points at his own shirt, already looking like he’s about to conk out. Note: Lance has better stamina than him.

Shiro opens the arm not curled around Keith, and Lance wiggles in next to him.

“Keith wants to hear a song, but I’m not very good, fair warning.” Shiro laughs sheepishly, his smile a bit lopsided.

“I can sing!” Lance’s hand shoots up in the air like he’s in class, and while red hot embarrassment runs through him, Shiro only raises an eyebrow and Keith blinks slowly at him.

Then a grin cracks across Shiro’s voice. “Sure thing. Give me your best shot.”

Lance nods, already sitting up and out of Shiro’s arms. Shiro pouts a little at him for that, but Lance waves him off excitably. He loves singing, he’s _good_ at it.

And now he gets to share it with them, for real.

Taking a deep breath, he steadies himself, flashing his teeth over at the two pairs of waiting eyes.

Welp, you can’t rush perfection, but he’ll do his best.

“ _[Remember](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_zAlg76K4s)_   _me_ ,” He starts slowly off in Spanish, this song from Coco being one of his favorites. Shiro’s eyes widen at his low voice, and even Keith seems to be a little more alert. “ _Today I have to go, my love_.”

“ _Remember me,_ ” Lance repeats, his voice growing stronger. “ _Please don’t cry. I carry you into my heart and you will have me close._ ” He closes his eyes, smiling as he hears what he thinks to be Keith sitting up. “ _By myself, I will sing to you, dreaming of returning. Remember me…_ ”

He opens them again at the touch of a hand against his. Keith is leaning towards him now, his expression wonder-struck, all signs of sleepiness gone, and Shiro -

Shiro looks like he’s about to cry, gently cradling Lance’s hand in between both of his. “ _Remember me, though I have to migrate. Remember me, if you hear my guitar cry,_ ” He tips his head back slightly as he hits the higher notes. “ _I_ _t will accompany you with its sad song. Until you’re in my arms, remember me…_ ”

The last note trails off into the silence of the basement, and then Shiro sweeps him up into his arms, a broken whimper of, “My baby boy, my little songbird,” and then Keith is tugging at his arm, excitably asking if he can sing it again, pretty please, and it’s so much attention, so much _love_ -

And Lance _breaks_.

“I love you,” He sobs, pulling Keith into his open arms, curling the both of them in Shiro’s lap. Tears drip down his cheeks as desperate gasps fight their way out of his mouth. “I love you, I wanna stay, I want it to be like this forever -”

And Shiro is hushing him, trying to calm his sobs, and even Keith is patting his cheek, all them doing their best to comfort him, but he can’t stop -

“I wanna be your family, I want you to be my daddy, I want Keith as my brother, I want to _stay_ here - “

And then all three of them are crying, ugly tears as they hold onto each other, and Lance can hear Shiro’s choked “Sweetheart, yes, god yes -” and Keith’s wail of “Finally, Lance, _Lance_ -”

Lance _stays_.

•••

Waking up the next morning greets him with a headache and itchy eyes. Scratching at the skin around them, Lance blinks sleepily at the sight before him.

They must have fallen asleep last night crying - how _embarrassing_ \- because all three of them were stuffed in Keith’s bed. Thank god it’s bigger than Lance’s bed, they never would have fit otherwise. Lance was curled up next to the wall, Keith tucked under his chin with the other boy’s arms wrapped loosely around his waist. Shiro had his metal arm slung over all of them, his back to the door and expression relaxed in sleep.

Lance sits up slowly, being careful to move Shiro’s and Keith’s arms. He really, really has to pee. He told Keith those slushies before they left the zoo was a bad idea!

It takes him at least ten minutes to wiggle out without waking either one of them up. Even so, Shiro smiles at him kindly, if a bit sleepily, when Lance waddles back from the bathroom.

“How ya doing?” Shiro asks him, instinctively accepting Lance crawling into his lap to demand cuddles.

“Good,” Lance murmurs, not wanting to wake Keith up. “You?”

Shiro grins, sharp and beautiful in its strength. “The best. Can you wake Keith up for me, and I’ll make all three of us breakfast?”

Lance accepts his quest with all the needed seriousness, and Shiro leaves Lance with the task of waking the sleeping dragon with a small wave over his shoulder.

He considers Keith for a long moment. Jumping on the bed? Dumping water on him like stupid Marco did once? Turn the TV on really loudly?

Or, he considers, sliding into bed next to Keith, brushing the too-long yet super soft bangs out of his face. He could just be nice.

“Hey,” He whispers, giggling a little bit as Keith furrows his eyebrows and tries to wiggle back into the blankets. “C’mon, you want bacon, don’t you? I’ll eat all of yours otherwise.”

“Nooooo,” Keith groans, finally opening his eyes to send Lance a glare. A couple inches off though, but A+ for effort. “No bacon stealer.”

“Than time to get up,” He coos. Lance honestly thinks he’s just going to be ignored, but then Keith struggles with the blankets, swaying to a sitting up position. Keith peers at him with thin slitted eyes, but then he brightens up, as if remembering something.

“You’re here,” Keith smiles at him, dropping his head on Lance’s shoulder and taking his free hand to play with. “You stayed.”

Lance nods shallowly, not wanting to knock his chin into Keith’s head. “I stayed.”

“I’ve been waiting for you…” Keith mumbles, his head drooping before abruptly being picked back up to Lance’s shoulder, like a duck looking for fish. “So lonely…all day by myself…me and daddy been waiting forever…”

“You’re falling asleep,” Lance scolds, ruffling Keith’s hair just on the edge of harsh. “C’mon, we have bacon waiting for us.”

“Bacon for me and you and daddy.” Keith says, voice barely audible as his head droops back towards his lap again.

Lance sighs, but there’s a little bit of a smile on his face. Just a little bit. “Bacon for you and me and… daddy.”

Even half asleep, Keith manages to make some kind of purring sound and headbutts Lance’s arm. He’ll take it as a sign of affection.

•••

Going back home…is weird.

“Bye Keith, bye daddy!” He waves to them as he slides out of the car, backpack once again full of dirty clothes and the stuffed sea lion Shiro bought him at the zoo.

“Bye Lance!” Keith waves enthusiastically, almost knocking off the sunglasses Shiro forced on him after breakfast. “See you tomorrow!”

“We’re going shopping for room furniture for you,” Shiro calls, leaning back in his seat. Lance furrows his eyebrows. Room furniture? “And…I think I’ll be moving you guys upstairs.”

Keith throws up his hands in the air. “Can we play in the backyard?!”

Shiro laughs. “Sure thing, kiddo.”

“Do you have a swing-set?” Lance asks excitedly, leaning on the car frame.

Shiro pins him with a strange look. “I will now, I suppose. Now, you have to get home, ok? Me and Keith will pick you up tomorrow for shopping.”

“Okay!” Lance nods his head, and with one last round of goodbyes, he shuts the door.

He doesn’t watch them drive off. He can’t.

Instead, he goes home.

No one is home when he gets there, and the house rings of loneliness. Plopping down his his bed like a starfish, Lance stares at the ceiling with vacant eyes.

He already misses them. Lance knows he loves his family, even mami and papi, but with Keith and Shiro… it’s different.

Turning in bed until he faces the wall, Lance perks up at the sound of the side door opening.

“Veronica!” He shouts, jumping to his feet and racing towards the door. “Veronica, guess what -”

It’s not Veronica.

Mami glances up at him from taking off her shoes, openly surprised.

“Oh,” He says instead. “Hi...mami.”

They haven’t talked in probably months. There’s dark crescent moons under her eyes, and a tightness in her face that makes her look older than she actually is.

“Hey pumpkin…” She murmurs, and it’s like it was before, before the fighting and the arguments and the broken glass. “We haven’t…talked in a while.”

Lance shuffles his feet. “No, we haven’t. How...are you?”

She gives him a weak smile, brushing her hair out of her face. “I’m fine - I’m, fine.”

“That’s good.”

Awkward silence reigns.

“I…” Mami starts, closing her eyes briefly as if she was in pain. “I’ve been a pretty cruddy mother, huh?”

Lance doesn’t say anything.

“Veronica, she’s a strong girl.” She says out of the blue. “And my parents will offer their help to you guys, I know they will.”

“Mami…?”

“So,” She swallows, and Lance realizes, with a jerk in his stomach, that she looks close to _crying_. “I think it’s best you kids go live with my parents, just for a little while.”

“Your parents?” A pin could have dropped and he would have heard it, that’s how silent the room is. “You mean _abuelita_ and _abuelo_ in _Cuba_?!”

She nods slightly. “It’ll be safer there; your Spanish might be a little accented, but I’m sure you’ll make plenty of friends.”

Lance throws his arms out. “I don’t want friends! I just want you guys _to get along!_ ”

Mami swallows. “I’m sorry baby. I’m sorry.”

Shooting her a nasty glare, he turns on his heel to stomp towards his room. “Saying sorry isn’t enough.”

He doesn’t come out of his room for the rest of the night, even when the rest of his siblings arrive.

Lance has to tell Shiro, he can’t just disappear on him, he’ll be heartbroken…

•••

(He never gets the chance)

•••

“ _Who the fuck stole my money?!_ ” Papi’s scream jerks him out of his sleep, and he’s scrambling out of the bed before he even thinks about what he’s doing. Luis is already clambering in the tiny cramped spot he made weeks ago just for this occasion between the headboard and the wall, so Lance hurries to his hands and knees to drag himself under his bed and behind his dirty clothes.

He holds his breath as he hears papi stomp into their room, a whimper cutting off in his throat at the loud _boom_ of their bureau being knocked over, everything crashing into the ground and shattering, shattering…

“Fucking brats,” Papi snarls, voice slurred and footsteps uneven. “Where’s the _goddamn_ money!”

“Tomas, stop!” His mami shouts, and Lance’s eyes widen at seeing her bare feet run into their room, struggling with something papi is holding. She never got involved before… “Put the knife down, please.”

Knife?

“Stay out of this,” The boots Lance can see push mami out of the way, and then they stomp across the hall towards the girls room. “Where are you brats, always …”

The only warning he has is the way mami sucks her breath in, and then someone shrieks.

_Rachel._

Luis is already diving out of his hiding spot before Lance can wiggle out from under the bed, running full speed across the hall. “Don’t you touch her, asshole!”

Lance clambers to his feet next to mami, his heart going a mile a minute, slamming against his rib cage as papi shakes Rachel by her upper arm, the other hand holding the knife from the dishwater he’s not allowed to touch.

Veronica lets out a sob from behind them, holding her hands up, pacifying their own _father._  “Let her go! I’ll give you the money, just let her go!”

Papi swings the knife near Rachel, and his sister lets out a choked whimper, her terrified eyes fixed on the knife. “Where is it?”

Veronica slowly inches across the floor, reaching towards their own bureau. She opens a jewelry box, and fumbling with the large handfuls of cash, she offers it to papi.

“Please,” She cries, and Lance covers his own mouth at the sight of his older, untouchable sister crying. There’s the quiet sound of the attic door opening, and Marco watches the whole scene with wide eyes before turning on his heels and running, probably to get help. “The rent is due next week, we have to pay it somehow. Please.”

Papi sneers at her, adjusting his grip on the knife and pulling Rachel closer to him. “Go sell yourself then, you’ll make plenty of money that way without having to be a filthy thief.”

This man isn’t his dad, Lance realizes, watching his papi stumble, bringing the knife precariously close to Rachel’s face. Rachel, his jerk of a sister, but still his _sister_ who loves the color purple and painting her nails and kicking his butt at basketball, lets out a desperate blubber.

No, his dad is far away from this house, from this pain and anger.

And right as he thinks that, there’s fast footsteps sprinting their way across the hall, and then Marco is there.

“Let her go!” Marco screams, and then Lance stumbles backwards at the sight of Marco holding his papi’s _hunting rifle_. “I’m not fucking around!”

Papi’s expression drops in surprise, and then he’s backing away from Rachel with his hands in the air. “I didn’t mean -”

“ _Drop the fucking knife!_ ” Marco snarls, keeping the gun pointed at papi, Marco who loves their camping trips and begged papi to teach him how to shoot the gun at the cans they would line up on a fence.

Luis grabs Rachel the instant papi’s far enough away, tugging her behind Veronica, his oldest sister tucking all of the stolen money in her shirt before hugging Rachel, all three of their eyes still on papi, who’s still holding the knife.

Mami steps forward, keeping her hands in the air and leaving Lance alone in the room. “Honey, please, let’s talk it out -” and then Marco makes some kind of clicking sound with the gun, and everyone freezes.

“Drop the knife.” Marco says lowly, eyes wild but voice deadly calm. “Drop the _fucking_ knife -”

And Lance _bolts_. Doesn’t grab his shoes, doesn’t grab his coat, he just _runs._ The side door slams shut behind him, and Lance lets the tears burn against his cheeks as he tears through the fence to the backyard, and beyond that, to the woods behind it.

Instantly, he begins to regret it as the twigs and and needles dig into his bare feet, arms protecting his face from the branching smacking against him.

Behind him there’s something that sounds like a firework, a distant _bang_. Lance hyperventilates into his forearms, ragged gasps escaping him as he dashes through the undergrowth.

He can’t he can’t he can’t _he can’t he can’t -_

“Daddy!” He screams to no one. “Please!”

•••

The sun rises eventually, but Lance barely notices it.

He blinks slowly at the greenish brook bubbling by him, exhausted to the core. He lost the way back, and he doesn’t know the way forward.

His feet scream at him, covered in dirt and cuts. Lolling his head backwards, he lets out a quiet, high-pitched whine, too thirsty for any tears.

Lance knows he’s not supposed to drink water from rivers or lakes, so he just stares at the water with longing.

Marco, Luis, Rachel, Veronica…

Papi, mami…

Keith, Shiro…

He left behind the stuffed sea lion from the zoo, he realizes. It was only two days ago, but it feels so long away now.

Distantly, he wonders if anyone is looking for him. If he _wants_ anyone to look for him.

Maybe he’ll live out here, he thinks, almost deliriously. Eat berries and learn how to talk to animals.

Dropping his head back against the trunk behind him, he closes his eyes just for a brief moment. He’s a little tired, but he won’t…

•••

Huffing, he leans against the tree next to him, wincing as he settled his weight a little too strongly on his right ankle. Earlier, he tripped on a tree root, and now it aches  _so_ , _so_ badly.

“Daddy!” Lance cries out, tripping and barely catching himself. “ _Daddy_!”

But no one answers.

•••

He’s scared he’s scared he’s scared he’s scared he’s scared he’s scared he’s scared he’s scared he’s scared he’s scaredhe’s scaredhe’sscaredhe’s _scaredhe’sscaredhe’sscared_ -

h

e

‘

s

 

s

c

a

r

e

d

•••

The sun sets once more. Lance collapses against another tree, his mind drifting in the clouds.

His ankle throbs to his heartbeat, pounding pounding pounding there’s dirt everywhere and all he can hear is _bang bang bang_ of papi’s gun -

•••

Cars.

There’s a car.

Lance tiredly lifts his head, blurry eyes focused on the tree line in the distance.

And sure enough - it’s a road. He’s out of the woods.

“Oh,” He says, choking on another dry sob. “ _Oh_.”

Stumbling, he drags his right foot behind him, using every tree he can reach as a crutch. Faster, faster, faster -

He breaks out onto cement, his feet stinging and leaving fresh smears of blood on the cold road as old and new cuts reopen.

Swinging his head this way and that way, his head feeling clear for the first time in _days_ , a relieved gasp tears itself out of his throat as he recognizes the road.

It’s the road leading to the highway, the highway to the zoo. He’s not even in town anymore - he’s _miles_ away from home.

But, as he turns his head away from the highway on ramp and to the empty road behind him, he realizes he’s only a handful of minutes away from Shiro’s home by car.

“Keith,” He murmurs, trying to remember how the map of the town went, and where the two story house with the soft basement and loving hugs was. “Daddy.”

Straight, then two lefts at the second stop sign with the horse farm.

Straight, he repeats to himself as he drags himself off the road and into the soft grass next to it. Straight, until the horse farm. He can do that.

It’s so close, but yet so far by walking, if he could even count the demented skip he’s doing as walking. So close, but so far.

So close. The first stop sign rises and passes him, and on the empty and dark road, only lit by a streetlight every ten feet or so, Lance feels something rise in him for the first time since he ran, warm and curling in his gut.

Hope.

Lance smells the horse farm before he sees it, but he can’t bring himself to care in the least. Left, then another left at the house with the weird tented roof.

Left.

Left.

His steps pick up, forcing the pain out of his mind. All he wants right now is for Shiro to give him those hugs that make everything else fall away, and for Keith to run his fingers through his hair and keep watch over him, so no more angry men can try and tear him out of his bed.

It’s hard to see in the dark, but his breath is punched out of him at the sight of the very same tented roof in his memories, lit only by an outside light by the large oak door.

Another left. It’s almost here.

Almost -

Lance stops, sucking in a sharp branch in front of the dark house, with its too big bedrooms and large, open windows.

He’s home.

Running, he nearly trips into the front door, slamming his palm against the door. “Daddy! Daddy, please wake up! Daddy -”

The living room light turns on in a shower of bright light, and then the door is falling open, and Lance is _falling_ -

“You’re here,” Shiro whispers, his own eyes red and sore looking. His hands shake as he cups Lance’s cheek, fruitlessly trying to wipe away all the dirt from two days in the woods collected on his face. “You’re safe, you’re _okay_.”

“Daddy,” Lance clings to his shirt, bopping their gently foreheads together, both of them uncaring of all the dried sweat and tears and mud clinging to him. “I was so scared, Marco had a gun and papi had a knife and I ran and I ran but I was so _lost_ -”

Shiro shushes him, smiling through his own tears. “It’s okay, sweetheart. I have you now.”

Picking Lance up, Shiro lets him curl around his neck, burying his face in the soft cotton sleep shirt.

“You're okay.” Shiro whispers to him, locking the front door with one final _click_. “You’re never gonna be scared again, I promise you.”

•••

Sitting in the bath, Lance yawns as Shiro scrubs at his hair, frowning at all the caked dirt landing in the bath water.

Maybe he should have taken a shower instead.

Keith leans next to bathtub, resting his head in his arms. Shiro woke him up after Lance found his way home, and Lance had a parasite clinging to his waist for an entire five minutes before Keith could bare being more than a foot away from him.

“Breakfast places should be open in about an hour, if you’re still hungry?” Shiro offers, glancing at the watch around his wrist, supposedly waterproof, as everything else was either taken off or rolled up to his elbows.

Lance nods enthusiastically, and even Keith gives a sleepy thumbs up. He won’t say anything, but he thinks both of them need a nap after more food.

Shiro already made him four slices of toast and some cut up apples (along with forcing him to drink water _slowly_ , the jerk), but the last meal he remembers eating was...the breakfast he had after the sleepover. So he’s allowed to still be hungry.

“Sounds good to me. Denny’s?” Shiro asks, cupping his hand over Lance’s forehead as he pours the cup of water over his head to wash the shampoo out.

“IHOP.” Keith mutters, nuzzling his head into the porcelain. “Pancakes.”

“Denny’s has pancakes too.” Shiro defends, but both of them are smiling. Even Lance is smiling from all the relief he can feel in his veins, soft and warm and comforting.

“I have something to tell you, boys.” Both Keith and Lance wake up a little bit, blinking at Shiro for the out of the blue statement. Shiro’s hands fall away from Lance’s hair, resting on the edge of tub instead.

“I think we need to move.”

“What!?” Keith stands up, fists at his side. “No! I like this place, I don’t want to move again.”

Shiro keeps his gaze steady. “Baby, sweetheart, listen to me. It’s not safe here anymore, okay? Lance has been missing for two days, they’ve already talked to the police about it, people know how close we are.”

“No.” Keith grits out, teeth clenched. “You’re just - just being scared again!”

Shiro flinches like he was shot, eyes wide.

Keith raises his chin, knowing what he said hit close to home. “You’re always so scared! I stayed with papa because you were scared, and then I ran away from Mrs. Rogers because you were scared again! I’m tired, daddy. I'm tired of you being scared, I want to play outside and sleep upstairs and go to the zoo more than once a year!”

Lance clutches his bare knees, knowing that this was Keith’s true feelings. His own frustrations, his own sadness, all pent up.

“Why can’t we just be normal?” Keith asks, voice small, and Shiro doesn’t seem to have an answer. Keith wilts, tucking his arms close to himself in a shaky hug.

“I’ll be in my room.” Keith says, sounding defeated, before leaving the bathroom. A couple moments afterwards, there’s the quiet sound of the basement door closing and footsteps down the stairs.

Lance shifts in the lukewarm bath water, watching Shiro look ready to cry, digging his nails so hard into his knees that Lance can already see blood welling up.

“Shiro?” He asks hesitantly, forgetting to use his fond nickname. But it seems to work, as Shiro’s vacant stare drifts from the floor to Lance.

“Are you going to leave me too?” Shiro asks, voice rough and empty. There’s no tears, but he may as well be broken, shattered on the floor as Keith walks away from him.

Lance shakes his head. “Go talk to Keith, go say sorry, I can finish the rest of the bubble bath by myself.”

Shiro seems to have heard him, but he doesn’t move. The blood is thick enough to drip down his knees, and Lance watches, entranced, as it drips onto the white tile like red tears.

“My mami used to always say you have to make compromises when you fight. Shiro…daddy, no one's gonna take me and Keith away. Keith just wants to be a normal kid, too.” Lance explains, watching Shiro’s face for any sign of recognition. “We still love you bunches, Keith’s just a little angry, he’s not gonna leave.”

It takes a few minutes, but then Shiro starts crying. There’s no noise, only silent tears trickling down his face, and his shuddering gasps.

“I’m…I’m gonna -” Shiro hurries to his feet, rushing to the door. “I’ll be right back.”

“No you won’t!” Lance sings to himself, laughing quietly as he hears Shiro bolting down the basement stairs.

He buys them some time by scrubbing the rest of the dirt off himself, though the bath water is now a murky brown that makes him gag if he looks at it for too long. Then, when he can’t stand staying in the tub for any longer, he claws his way out to stand on stinging feet.

His ankle still hurts, but the pain is just a dull presence now, no longer all consuming. After toweling himself off, he carefully puts on Keith’s pjs, laughing a bit at how the pants ride up above his ankles. Keith’s so short!

It’s been a good couple minutes by now, so he doesn’t feel too bad as he unplugs the tub and limps over to the basement.

Sure enough, after taking the steps slowly one by one, he sees that Keith and Shiro are both hugging it out, neither of them crying but both with wet faces.

“Hey baby,” Shiro greets Lance, but he keeps his eyes on Keith. “We won’t be moving after all, okay?”

Keith nods, a small smile forming. “Okay.”

“I’ll also...” Shiro rubs at his face, looking almost defeated, but it melts away as Keith nuzzles into his shoulder. “I’ll...loosen up the rules, a bit.”

Lance crosses his arms expectantly, raising an eyebrow at Shiro. “And?”

Shiro sighs. “And I’ll move you both upstairs. After! After a month, I still have to get the room ready and we need to keep Lance on the down low until his disappearance cools down a little bit.”

Keith’s smile grows until a full blown beam. “...The zoo?”

“You’ll wear a hat, and sunglasses still.” Shiro launches right into the details, but at seeing Keith’s dejected expression, he backtracks. “But, I suppose as long as we go out of state, we’ll be fine. Lance, you like sharks, don’t you?”

“Yep!” Lance wiggles, finally plopping next to Keith on his bed. He gives his friend a quick hug, and Keith grabs him as best he can with one arm when he makes to move away, keeping them together.

Well, okay then. Keith could honestly just say when he wants cuddles, it’s not _that_ hard.

“Then, I’ll bring you to the aquarium next weekend. And then the next, maybe we’ll all go to an amusement park. How does that sound?” Keith practically vibrates next to him, excitement dancing in his eyes.

“Wow,” Keith softly says, a small smile lighting up his face. “I’m…that’s…”

Shiro kisses Keith’s hair, eyes closing briefly. “It’s a deal then.”

Keith swallows heavily. “Deal. “

“Now,” Shiro straightens, pinning Lance with a half-joking, half-serious glare. “Don’t think I didn’t see you limping. Get your feet up here so I can bandage them, mister.”

Laughing, Lance swung his legs over Keith’s lap and into Shiro’s. “I’m not stopping you!”

“Good,” Shiro says, squeezing Lance’s good ankle. “You wouldn’t be able to stop me anyhow.”

•••

Lance tilts his head back against the car door, humming along to the pop song as his thumbs danced along Shiro’s old DS. His legs were stretched across the backseat, wearing bright neon blue flip flops Shiro had to run in and buy at the convenience store when all three of them realized simultaneously that no way would tall and lanky Lance fit in tiny Keith’s shoes.

This time, he at least was wearing semi-fitting clothes. The overalls shorts apparently came from online shopping, but were about three sizes too big for Keith and a size too big for him. Underneath it, he wore just a simple striped purple sweater. No pants, because everything Keith owns is too small, but Shiro promised to take him shopping in a couple of days.

Keith absently pushes at the bandaged feet sitting in his lap, his tongue poking out slightly in concentration as he tries to find Lance’s hiding spot in the game. Like Lance, he’s dressed simply, just a baggy black sweatshirt and red sweatpants.

What a pair they make, Lance thinks, giggling as Keith’s avatar runs right past him, wildly looking left and right. Keith with barely an inch of skin showing, and Lance with bandages on pretty much every part of himself. Seriously, he even has a square shaped one on his forehead from where a branch smacked him, and another one on his cheek. At least they have superheroes on them, small mercies.

“Noooo,” Lance cries out as Keith’s avatar takes a sharp U-turn, having obviously spotted him. “Begone, farm boy!”

“Better than someone who actually likes the ocean!” Keith retorts, making a face when his tackle fails spectacularly and Lance’s brand new avatar sprints past him. “Hey! I was so close, get back here!”

“Nope,” Lance sings, than he perks up at the distant sound of the radio. “Daddy, can you turn it up?”

Shiro already has a hand on the dial before Lance even finishes asking. “You like pop songs, don’t you?”

He shrugs sheepishly, laughing as Keith’s avatar jumps into the _river_ instead of on him. _Wow_. “Who doesn’t? Keith, you’re so bad at this!”

Keith jerks his knees up, as if to remind him, that yes, he is still acting as his footrest. “I still beat your butt at pretty much everything else, so _ha_.”

“No you don’t!”

“Boys,” Shiro scolds them, but he’s smiling, so neither of them take him that seriously. “And here you go, sweetheart.”

He laughs, kicking his feet to the beat of the song. The car keeps driving by on empty highways in the early hours of the morning towards IHOP, Keith shoves at his feet again as they share a laugh between them, Shiro rolls his eyes at them, but there’s no violence to be found here.

And Lance?

Lance opens his mouth, and _sings_.

“ _[Will](https://youtu.be/_Pz3hjTJBFA?t=117)_   _you hold me tight and not let go? Symphony, like a love song on the radio..."_

•••

_Epilogue_

Rachel wipes the sweat out of her eyes, breathing out a tired sigh.

Her current foster mom sends her a sympathetic smile, looking just as tired herself. “They’re exhausting, aren’t they?”

“I’m never having kids.” Rachel groans, and her foster mom laughs.

Diane is a nice enough lady, with two little boys and a steady job as a lawyer. She needed an older child around the house to help with the kids and another female presence to relax with. Rachel doesn’t mind, really. It’s all temporary, anyhow.

Ever since the day her own papi held a knife to her over a year ago, things have been different. The cops were called at Marco’s warning shot, and in the end, they were taken away from her parents.

Her and Veronica still keep in touch through texting and visits on Fridays. She emancipated as soon as she could, and now owns a small apartment in a converted motel. She still works as a waitress, but she’s taking classes during the morning, thinking about being an engineer.

Veronica cut her hair, too. When all four of them were still at the hospital, stolen scissors cutting off her elbow length hair to her chin, determined gaze locked at the mirror while Rachel can only watch her sever her locks into the cramped sink. It’s not a bad look on her - makes her cheekbones pop.

Luis lives with her too - Veronica got custody of him only a handful of days after she turned eighteen. He’s in his junior year of high school now, and he’s back to playing sports. He looks pretty happy, the rare times when they hang out one on one.

Marco… is across the state now. He’s in a group home for troubled kids, and while he bitches about the therapy and obligatory church youth group meetings, he seems better. Less angry. She knows Veronica’s working on getting custody of him next, but Marco is still deemed too unstable to be fostered. It’s like that day broke something inside of him, and now he fights everything that looks at him wrong, a vengeful protectiveness that’s more stifling than helpful.

And…

Lance has been missing for almost two years. He ran out the door that day, and no one’s seen him since.

The police found his footsteps in the mud, and they even had dogs search for his scent. They managed to track him for a good mile and a half before he crossed a river, and then they lost his scent.

Rachel’s isn’t stupid - she knows he’s likely dead, if not worse. But - it still hurts that her baby brother panicked and ran from a terrifying situation straight into a worse one.

Veronica took it the worse out of all of them. Rachel can still remember her slumped form in the hospital bed, choppy and uneven ringlets curling around her ears after the police officer told them that _it’s been more than forty-eight hours, we’ve lost his trail, I’m sorry,_ silent sobs smothered into her pillow.

They go to the park now on his birthdays, the three of them, eating ice cream and busting out the old photo books they rescued from mami and papi’s house, of happier days and bright memories.

They…were doing okay, last Rachel checked. Mami went back to Cuba, to stay with her parents. She calls them on their birthdays, and sends them money for every holiday. She’s working hard to save up for them, content with staying out of their lives and just supporting in whatever way she can, knowing she lost them the day she let the first bruise appear on Marco’s face without doing anything.

The courthouse filed a restraining order against papi, so none of them have been allowed to see him since the cops arrested him. Luis heard from one of his friends parents that he’s attending anger management, and that he got a job at the post office.

Veronica got an envelope last Christmas without a return address, jack full of money and a note that just read ‘ _S_ _orry_ ’. They burnt the note and put the money in their joint college savings, because while _it_ would have been fun to burn the money, Veronica had to be a party pooper and remind that they weren’t made of money.

Shame.

Now, standing among her other graduating elementary class, Rachel straightens up as the ceremony begins to end, and her musing as well. Middle school sounds frankly terrifying, but if she just shows everyone who’s boss on the first day like Luis did, she’ll be just fine.

Maybe she shouldn’t assert her alpha dominance by spitting in a bully’s open mouth, though.

“Thank god,” Her friend Madeline mutters under her breath, and Rachel makes a vigorous agreeing sound.

Eventually, the ceremony was able to disperse and Rachel could finally leave. Veronica took the day off of work to treat her and Luis to dinner, and she’s more than ready to just get this show on the road.

And then, of course, in a voice only a teacher could make, someone calls her name.

Turning her head as she comes to a stop with a busy Diane at her side, Rachel’s face dips into a frown.

Mr. Shirogane. Aka, the creeper who used to leer at her brother. Used to hold her baby brother’s wrist like it was something of his to own, an ugly possessiveness that everyone but her brother could see.

“Yes?” She asks pointedly, crossing her arms after waving Madeleine to go on without her. Her friend hesitates, obviously confused by the hostile tone Rachel keeps with the school nurse, but she eventually says a simple, “See you later!” and leaves to go find her own family.

“I just wanted to say my congratulations,” Mr. Shirogane’s smile widens, looking so smug that she wants to deck him in the face. “Top of the class, huh? Not an easy feat.”

Rachel snorts, eyeing him. “Easy enough.”

She honestly thought, in those hospital weeks, that Mr. Shirogane was the reason for Lance’s disappearance. Screamed it to anyone who would listen, but eventually Luis had cried for her to shut up, _there was nothing there_!

Mr. Shirogane invited the officers right into his house, apparently. They searched high and low, but there was nothing to be found. Not even a creepy murder basement.

No one believed her. And truthfully, Rachel eventually stopped believing in herself too.

Sure, he was a creeper, but that didn’t mean he actually _did_ anything.

Rachel still didn’t like him, though.

“That’s all I had to say,” Mr. Shirogane shrugs, resting his hands on his hips confidently. “Have a good life, Rachel.”

Narrowing her eyes, she eventually concedes. “You too.”

Watching him leave the stage and head over towards teacher parking, Rachel felt oddly…vulnerable.

“He was a strange fellow,” Diane comments, already herding the boys to the car. “I’ll pick you up from your sister’s at seven?”

Rachel tears her eyes away from Mr. Shirogane and back towards her foster mother. “Y-yes, see you then.”

With one glance towards Mr. Shirogane, she turns away from the man and towards her family.

She has bigger things to worry about. Like if the neighborhood pool would be open yet for the summer, or if Veronica will finally get custody of Marco.

For now, she’ll have to let him - and the memory of Lance’s smile around the name ‘ _Shiro_ ’ - go.

 

Shiro runs his fingers through his bangs with a wiry grin, feeling Lance’s sister’s gaze on him as he walks away from her. A sharp one, that she is.

Not _that_ smart, though.

When it’s safe enough, he glances through his peripherals to see that the thing was busy talking to her foster mother.

Good riddance.

Opening the driver side door, he slides into the car quickly, already turning around to face the backseat before the door was even fully closed behind him.

“Hey baby, did you like the graduation?”

“I did!” Lance chimes, moving away from the window to give him a hug. Keith mutters under his breath and tries to tackle Shiro first, but he underestimates how determined Lance can be when he’s feeling clingy. “How’s Rachel doing?”

“Seems to me just fine.” Shiro comments, laughing under his breath as Keith ultimately wins in this round of ‘who gets to tackle Shiro’s knees out first’. Lance pouts, and he feels a spike of dread at his determined expression. Last time they had this argument, Shiro ended up with a giant bruise on his back from being sent flying. “You ready to go to the zoo?”

“They have new babies!” Keith gasps, eyes practically glittering. “They said so on the website, they got a new baby hippo. Did you know that hippos are really territorial?”

“I didn’t know that,” He says kindly, though he’s heard that specific fact at least three times. Keith _really_ likes hippos, and while it could be a little worrying, it was also incredibly endearing. “If we hurry, we can get dinner at the new Thai place that opened up.”

“Yessss,” Lance fist pumps the air, already scooting back in his seat to buckle up. “Curry! Curry! Curry!”

Keith scowls at having to end his hippo tirade (which Shiro mentally gives a _thank god_ for), but the idea of having Thai for dinner curbs the anger easily enough.

Shiro taps the wheel as they slowly pull out of the parking lot behind several others all rushing to get out. For a moment, he gets a glimpse of the McClain family getting into the oldest’s car, but when he glances behind him in the rear view mirror, he sees that Lance’s own eyes were down at his lap, presumably playing the new game Shiro bought both of them for their long car trips.

They were both doing so well - he was worried there for a while, about Keith. He never said anything, but Shiro knew the signs of depression, knew that it was getting bad when Keith stopped eating his lunches or getting out of bed while he was at work.

But ever since he heard his little songbird singing on the steps of the town’s church, his chubby little legs kicking to the beat and his starstruck gaze stuck on the sky, and Shiro knew he was in love.

And imagine his surprise when he found out his little songbird went to the school he worked at! With every minute they spent together, Shiro was a little more in love with the boy who smiled through his pain and hugged Shiro _so_ gently.

It was a risk, sure, to introduce him to Keith. But once Keith got used to the idea of having a sibling, he started getting out of bed again and seemed to actually perk up.

And once they were introduced face to face, they got on like a house on fire. They were so adorable playing pretend that he spent way too much time watching them through his phone rather than working.

So cute! His babies were so cute!

Shiro knows, vaguely, that his mind wasn’t the same after he was rescued. It didn’t break, it didn’t break, it just, _cracked_.

And Adam, the traitor, with his calm voice of _Takashi please understand it’s not safe anymore you could hurt Akira during a flashback_ and how Shiro reared back, unable to contain the fury of some one (some _thing_ ) taking away his baby, and he hit the thing so hard its head hit the edge of the counter with a loud _thunk_.

He panicked then, ran out of the bedroom they shared and packed his things. It was still alive, last he checked, but he didn’t call an ambulance. Instead, he ran to Mrs. Rogers across the street where the old couple had taken Akira in for the week and climbed in through his baby’s window, only taking enough time to grab a bag for him as well before forcing the two of them to flee.

Eventually, he found himself to this small town with forged records, and into Lance’s life.

Maybe it’s not the most legal of things, but Shiro can’t really bring himself to mind. He loves the two of them more than anything in the world.

And, as he watches the McClain family drive away, his own mind on missing persons posters and his babies little innocent laughs, tiny hands and a bedroom with two messy beds and a bright open window facing the backyard, he can’t make himself feel guilty.

Does that make him an awful person?

Probably.

But as Lance laughs at something happening on the DS, kicking his legs along to whatever happens on the screen, Keith leaning over to ask with a large beaming grin _What? What is it? Lanceeeee tell me_ , Shiro can only bury the questions deep inside.

Because Shiro loves his little songbird and lamb. And they love him.

They’re a family.

They’re _his_ family.

And that’s all that matters.

**Author's Note:**

> To think this fic was darker in the drafts, this is actually comparatively fluffy, lol.
> 
> In all honestly, Shiro should _not_ have children, he's pretty unstable, ngl. He was actually much more violent in previous drafts and at one point murdered Lance's bullies, but he's softer here. He just loves his kids and is too gentle with them around for that to actually happen. 
> 
> References to Shiro's past is my favorite thing ever. At the core of him, he's just a man whose broke down after he was rescued, and ended up becoming dangerously obsessed with Keith. Poor Adam, the man saw the warning signs but thought he could reason with Shiro. 
> 
> (At least he's still maybe alive in this draft)
> 
> Happy ending...?


End file.
